
ftoydi 



MY VILLAGE 



MY Vll } HP 

[II YlLUu, 




1HARLE5 SCI{!BNERS SONS, 

NLW YORK 1895 






Copyright, 1896, 
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS. 



JHntoersitg Press: 

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



": I! Pll 

- rtir-r-* "S-1&lt;Sr;l 




CONTENTS 



VALOMBRE 

MY NEIGHBORS 

FIRE AT SEROY 

" PEAUX DE LAPINS!" 

THE FOURTEENTH OK JULY 

DESIRE 

FIRST COMMUNION 



PACE 

3 
7 

18 
24 
26 
36 
55 



v j CONTENTS 

PAGE 

HARVEST, 1893 57 

KAISER S ILIAD 68 

" LA CHASSE " 

CELESTINE 7 



THE CURE 



80 



JEAN PAUL 86 

THE QUARRY .... 93 

LOCAL POLITICS 9 8 

" FETE DE VALOMBRE " I0 

ALBERT S ACCIDENT .130 

THE POSTMAN J 33 

THE PRESTIDIGITATEUR J 4 

TRAGEDY l ^ 

CELESTINE AND CARVOL 1 S 

THE PEASANT X 5 6 

THE " CANTONNIER " *7 

THE HERMIT OF VALOMBRE i? 8 

THE FIRE BRIGADE 188 

ROSALIE S DECLINE 195 

CONSTANCE . T 99 

BOHEMIANS 2 8 

MARIE S WEDDING .... ... 219 

ACH1LLE AND CELESTINE 225 

LOST IN THE QUARRY 23 : 

THONSINE 2 33 

HARVEST, 1894 2 4 X 

MERE POSTOL 2 49 



CONTENTS 



vn 



PAGE 

THF: INVASION 252 

CARVOL AND THE FTE 260 

THE BLACK SHEEP 266 

BY THE RIVER 269 

PALMYRE 276 

MY STREET : EVENING 286 

" LE SOURD " 288 

FIRE AT REMY 297 

PERE GAUDRIER 301 

IN THE FIELDS 307 

THE FISHERMAN 314 

THE CHAIR "RESEATER" 319 

WINTER 320 




MY VILLAGE 



My Village 



VALOMBRE 



VALOMRRE is a picturesque little village of 
about fifteen hundred souls, situated some 
thirty miles to the north of Paris. Though 
very old (in existence in A. D. 885, when 
the Norsemen came down the Oise to attack 
Paris), its history is very vague. 

Every war directed against the capital 
brought desolation and destruction to the 
villagers. Legend claims that Joan of Arc 
passed through on her way to Orleans. 
Here Henry IV., while busily carrying on his 
fighting, managed to find time to make love 
to the chatelaine of L Isle Adam. 

But to-day, the traces of the last war nearly 
forgotten, life is more prosaic, and doubtless 



4 MY VILLAGE 

happier. Yet the life of the village, though 
small and unimportant, still comprises in its 
own way all the complications of life in 
general. 

Here the petty ambitions and their work 
ings are simply feebler specimens of those 
which move mighty Paris and the great 
world. The troubles and misfortunes of 
general life are nearly all more or less repre 
sented. The pain and joy, success and fail 
ure, though ever so humble, are still as 
important here as are greater ones in greater 
places. Valombre is an epitome of the 
world and its life. And here humanity can 
be studied, and conclusions reached which 
can be applied to any other village or city. 
Its characteristics, though its own, are still 
based on the common big lines of average 
life, men and women at bottom being much 
the same the world over, once one gets to 
know them well. Outer appearances are 
different ; but the base rarely changes. Given 
the same conditions and circumstances, 
knowing a few, one can count with reason 
able accuracy on how the others will act. 



VALOMBRE 5 

Here artists struggle with all their might 
for fame ; while others, more practical, are 
aiming after wealth. The disinterested and 
the mercenary battle on together. The 
peasant, terribly matter-of-fact, labors from 
sunrise to sunset, working the earth he loves 
for the money it brings him, ever saving and 
economizing. As he gains, he hoards his 
wealth to buy more earth and (a universal 
ambition) to pose before his neighbors, 
much as do the business men in great cities. 

Sickness, trouble, and death strike here as 
elsewhere. Nature cries out in pain, as in 
more highly civilized centres. Honesty and 
dishonesty elbow each other daily. Crafti 
ness outdoes itself in its overreaching. Vice 
even raises its head. Crime, though feebly 
represented, has still its place. Faith and 
scepticism agree to disagree. Love and jeal 
ousy are not forgotten. Idleness and thrift 
dwell in the same house : and so on, in 
definitely, the old, old story of life with all 
its good and bad, its lights and shadows. 

Yes, the world is all alike ; by my village 
I know the rest. Be it greater or smaller, it 



6 MY VILLAGE 

is ever the same, only a question of scale ; 
here big, there small. The peasant, here 
laboriously striving, year in and year out, 
each day painfully resembling the last, ac 
quires a philosophy whose lines are strikingly 
like that obtained by a great thinker and 
observer of life. He u takes things as they 
come." Changing the world is a great 
task ; and each gives it up, and " drifts " 
intelligently. 




MY NEIGHBORS 

CARVOL 

CAR VOL, my neighbor, a heavily built and 
clumsy peasant become mason, is addicted to 
strong drink, and at regular intervals shows 
up in a painfully inebriated condition, to the 
intense disgust of his wife, who mercilessly 
belabors him with a venomed tongue. After 
each drunk he is sick, and has to leave his 



8 MY VILLAGE 

work for a day, while she makes it interest 
ing for him. 

Though the frequency of his celebrations 
merits the penalty it receives, since he often 
recklessly swallows, literally, half his month s 
pay, on which his wife has been counting, she, 
like most people of her class, uses so little 
judgment in administering the doses that he is 
driven to desperation. Formerly he would fly 
from the wrath to come , but now he fights 
back, sullenly and with accumulating vicious- 
ness ; and I hear them at it at all hours. 

I can sympathize with neither, as, though 
he is fast becoming a besotted brute, she is 
also degenerating into a termagant. Sooner 
or later, I fear that their quarrels will end in 
something serious ; in desperation, crazed by 
drink and her tongue, he may strike too 
hard. 

ROSALIE 

Madame Carvol, or Rosalie, as she 
is better known, is a strong, well-pre 
served woman of forty-five, or thereabouts, 
generally very pleasant, affable, and obliging, 
but a terrible bavarde (gossip), capable of 



MY NEIGHBORS 9 

leaving the most important work to talk 
scandal and trouble with any one who will 
listen, man, woman, or child. At all times 
I hear her at it ; the tireless tongue hard at 
work. Yet, in spite of this weakness, she is 
still a good, kind soul ; and did I not, against 
my desires, hear her share of the daily and 
nightly quarrels with her husband, I should 
call her a thoroughly good-natured creature. 

For the past five years she has been the 
telegraph-boy, so to speak, delivering the des 
patches. A wire from the post-office, also 
telegraph-headquarters, to her house rings her 
up when needed. For her services she re 
ceives twenty-five cents a day, throughout the 
year. The village has furnished her with a tri 
cycle, as her district covers some eight miles. 

During the summer, when the bourgeois 
are here, she is kept fairly busy ; but the 
winter leaves her quite free. On the de 
livery of each despatch she usually receives 
a " tip " of a few cents, one of the customs 
of this much " tipped " country ; so that, all 
in all, her appointment is considered a fairly 
good one. But she cannot or will not see it 



10 MY VILLAGE 

in this light, and continually complains of the 
work she has to do; insisting that those who 
receive the despatches live in ease, while 
she has all the running, a complaint so 
common that, whether there is any justice 
in it or not, one becomes heartily tired of 
hearing it from one end of the world to the 
other. 

FIFIE 

Her daughter Fifie is a big coarse girl of 
nineteen, a magnificent worker, with, as the 
peasants say, not a lazy bone in her body, 
good-natured and happy as the day is long, 
the life of the quarter. The pleasure of liv 
ing is a real thing with Fifie, Just at present 
she is madly in love, and getting her money s 
worth out of the sensation, 

Strange to sav, and much to mv amuse- 

O . 

ment, to my surprise she chose me as her 
confidant, before her mother knew of the 
existence of the lover, and at everv favor 
able opportunity gave me glowing accounts 
of his charms, ability, etc. But, at last, 
seeing that I enjoyed her enthusiasm too 
heartilv, she lost faith in me, and, in des- 



MY NEIGHBORS II 

peration, finally induced the young man to 
present himself at her house. 

KAISER 

Fifie s brother, just exempted from mili 
tary service on account of a crippled thumb, 
disabled in a poaching expedition, is gener 
ally known as Kaiser. Being born while the 
Prussians were garrisoned in the village dur 
ing the war of 187071, a local wag sug 
gested in jest the idea of giving him this 
name ; and, though the unfortunate boy was 
christened Eugene, Kaiser sticks to him and 
probably will through life. No doubt he 
resents it as a patriot, but his resentment 
avails him little. 

Kaiser, recently developing an inclination 
to follow in his father s footsteps, and 
inadvertently appearing at the house in an 
elevated condition, his mother, in a rage, 
ordered him out and away. So for the mo 
ment he is flying free. But I have no doubt 
he will before long put in an appearance 
after the style of the prodigal son, and with 
probablv as easy results, Rosalie being, I 



12 



MY VILLAGE 



think, too good-hearted to long bear resent 
ment against her son. 

This sketch sums up the present standing 
of the Carvol family, though perhaps I should 
have included the dog, Misery, who walks 
on his hind legs ; and the cat, who gives her 
lovers rendezvous in my yard at unearthly 
hours, disturbing the peace of my slumbers 
with painful frequency, though in the day 
time " meowing " at me in a most innocent 
manner, as though nothing had happened. 




CELESTINE AND DESIRE 

Below me, just across the street, Celestine 
and Desir6 have lived for the last fifty years, 



MY NEIGHBORS 13 

a sturdy pair of old-time peasants, still vigor 
ous, though gnarled and knotted, and as 
brown as the earth they till. Every day sees 
them both at work in the fields, though now 
each can count seventy-odd years of life, and 
nearly as many of work. 




A great grief came to them some twenty 
years ago ; their daughter, just married, sud 
denly took sick and died, and that day 
remains to Celestine as but yesterday. For 
now, in alluding to anything or any time, she 
invariably connects it in some way with her 
daughter. When speaking of the Exposition 
of 1878, she adds, " T was just two years 
after my poor Julie was married ; " again, 



MY VILLAGE 



referring to some person, " She and my Julie 
were of the same age," etc. The event and 
date are indelibly engraved in the old 
woman s memory. 




Celestine is garrulous, and, like Rosalie, 
loves a gossip ; when they meet hours fly by 
like minutes. 

As I passed to-night I heard the old woman 
busily talking to the butcher s boy ; poor old 
soul, she must talk to some one, though only 



MY NEIGHBORS 15 

a boy. She was sermoning this particular 
lad regarding the folly of idleness and the 
advantages of work, he stolidly listening, 
occasionally responding with " For sure, for 
sure," the extent of his powers of eloquence, 
now quite crushed by her voluble onslaught. 

After the boy had left, I still heard her, 
this time calling after her cat, " Come in, it s 
time to go to bed ; " but the cat sat quietly 
in the road, perfectly indifferent, declining to 
" come," and apparently considering, like 
servant-girls, this as his night out. 

ACHILLE 

Celestine s son, the blacksmith of Blville, 
a neighboring village, occasionally comes 
over to see the old folks. Achille is a char 
acter, a village wiseacre. The old mother is 
very proud of him and his " science," as she 
calls it, meaning his general knowledge. He 
is filled to the eyes with theories and schemes, 
new ideas of progress, ideas which he pon 
derously and verbosely lays down to the over 
powered old woman. " Ah, yes," she says, 
" my Achille has a great head." 



i6 



MY VILLAGE 



Achille poses as a sceptic, making fun of 
Ce lestine s old-fashioned notions. She oc 
casionally retorts, and quite often gets the 
better of" him by her 
hard " horse sense," 
tritely disabling his 
flowery endeavors of 
oratory and argument. 
True, he never sees 
this, and so feels none 
the worse. 

He had served in the 
war during the siege of" 
Paris, and tells wonder 
ful stories of" that tragic 
epoch ; but so prone is 
he to high coloring in his 
narratives, that facts and 
fancy become jumbled 
together; poor plain truth 
has a hard time of it, and 
the listener loses faith. 

Rheumatism quite often quiets him ; then 
Ce lestine bitterly shakes her fist at Paris. 
" Ah, that Paris, the cause of all his 




MY NEIGHBORS I/ 

trouble ; he did not know what rheumatism 
was till that war came," quite overlook 
ing the fact that Achille was a young 
man at that time, twenty-five years ago, and 
has since had ample time to acquire rheuma 
tism without the help of war and siege. But 
the peasant instinctively blames all his troubles 
on Paris, and grows bitter as that gay capital 
seems to thrive in spite of his maledictions. 




FIRE AT SERGY 

" TRUM-trum-trum-a-tum-tum-tum ! " the 
drum sounding the alarm of fire, calling on 
all to turn out and . lend a hand to suppress 
the danger before the thatched roofs, which 
burn like tinder, catch and spread destruction 
through the village. 

Hats are seized in haste, doors thrown 
open ; men and women rush, startled and 
anxious, to meet the drummer. " Where 
is the fire ? " 



FIRE AT SERGY 19 

" Trum -trum-trum-a-tum-tum-tum 
ominously and slowly the sound advances, 
spreading consternation and terror. The 
women, pale, in groups, excitedly gesticulate 
and wring their hands. Young girls, in their 
excitement, weep. The sound of that ter 
rible drum sends a shiver through all. 

Now the drummer has reached the " Mai- 
rie," the end of his beat. Another takes his 
place and continues the alarm to Remy, the 
neighboring village, while the church-bell 
steadily clangs its accompanying tocsin. 

It seems that the fire is at Sergy, the 
suburb of Valombre. The old people climb 
the hill and look away to where the smoke 
is rising. By their knowledge of the country, 
the result of half a century s existence in this 
one locality, they accurately place it, even tell 
the exact house, the grange by the walnuts 
near the station on the old road. They know 
it well ; old So-and-So s place. Ah yes, it 
reminds them of the last fire, and soon their 
wells of reminiscence are working. Each has 
some new detail to add. Thus they calm 
their impatience while the others are away. 



20 MY VILLAGE 

Off on a trot the younger men start ; even 
the women follow. No one will miss a fire. 
And soon the usually quiet village presents a 
long array of noisily shuffling legs and sabots. 

Prosper dashes up with his team, calling 
for volunteers. In we jump, and away. 
The spirited stallion has also become excited, 
and springs joyously to his work. Rein 
him up ! another peasant is to be taken in. 
u Keep on," he cries, and clambers in at the 
back. Off again. " Ho, Francois, climb up," 
slowing a little for an instant, then away 
again at a madly increasing pace. Women 
and children fly out of the road. Look out ! 
" We had better be late than kill any one," 
sagely suggests the " forest guard." Get 
out of the road then ! Hola ! dash and 
clatter, with the horse snorting and sweating, 
we ride up through the growing crowd to the 
scene of excitement. 

The native farmer-firemen have already 
mounted their primitive pump, and a stream is 
shooting its spray among the smoking rafters. 

All volunteers, those two long rows of 
bucket-passers feeding the machine from 
wells, or pumps, a hundred yards away. 



FIRE AT SERGY 21 

A motley gang, here an old woman, still 
wiry, passes the streaming canvas bucket to 
her neighbor, a bright lass ; she in turn hands 
it on to the stalwart tow-headed youth beside 
her, he to the town-crier, next to the clerk, 
then to a burly peasant, red and sweating, 
but with his whole heart in the work, and so 
on through fifty willing hands to the firemen, 
who pour the libation into the maw of the 
all-consuming though innocent-looking hand- 
pump engine. 

Six brawny, sweating, red, and enthusiastic 
peasants, firemen peasants, and farmer peas 
ants, it is all one, sway furiously up and 
down, forcing the thin stream through the 
hose, up, up, not to the clouds, only thirty 
feet, but still quite enough for the needs of 
the occasion. 

Old-fashioned brass helmets glisten in the 
sun, only a little brighter than those shining 
excited faces beneath, a most novel and 
thrillingly picturesque group of brilliant color 
and changing light and shade. 

Between the fire and water the old rafters 
gradually become a harmless wreck, and soon 



22 MY VILLAGE 

all danger is past. Gayety takes the place 
of anxiety. Yet still the pump-handles bang 
up and down, faster and faster. " Why r " 
" Oh ! only to let off" a little steam." Every 
one is now warmed to his work, and does n t 
want to give it up. 

Where but a few moments before was a 
real danger, now the scene is fast developing 
into a hilariously good time, a real picnic. 

Water is shot around promiscuously, use 
lessly now ; but they can t give it up so soon. 
It would n t be worth so much trouble. " So 
keep it up," until it almost becomes like a 
children s carnival. All laugh, none criticise ; 
a happy lot, rejuvenated for the moment. 

But the end must come ; there is now no 
longer a possible excuse for deluging the 
country. So gradually it slows down, and 
the pump is folded up, literally as well as 
figuratively speaking. 

Then the marcband de vln (saloon-keeper) 
does a thriving business for a short time ; 
as of course one must take a little glass 
after such an excitement, and talk over the 
thrilling or otherwise details of the affair, 



FIRE AT SERGY 



2 3 



a subject of conversation which will stand 
them in good stead for many days to come. 

And the fire of Sergy is resolved into his 
tory, to gain, as does most history, with its 
age : like a rolling snowball gathering new 
material along the way, material which, 
though possibly factitious, will not detract 
from the charm of the story. 




"PEAUX DE LAPINS !" 

INCESSANTLY I seem to hear the cry of 
" Po ! Po ! Peaux de lapins ! The buyer 
of rabbit-skins, a sturdy, red-faced, and red 
headed lout, stalks along with his rack 
strapped to his shoulders, with here and there 
a few rabbit-skins dangling, stiff and ugly, 
behind him. 

Every one, more or less, raises rabbits for 
home consumption ; he buys the skins for a 
few sous apiece, and resells them to a manu 
facturer of fur toys, tobacco-pouches, etc., 
for which these skins are used as ornamenta 
tion. A curious trade, yet it apparently 
feeds its man, as the expression goes -, for 
often, when bicycling, I find him playing with 
his child by the side of the river, with every 
sign of general contentment. 

But now he has several rivals in the field. 
I doubt there being enough rabbit-skins in 



PEAUX DE LAPINS!" 25 

Valombre to support three men. Still they 
stick to it. And when I don t hear one, the 
other is sure to be at hand with his amus 
ingly lugubrious cry of " Po ! Po ! " 

I am anxious to see how the competition 
will end ; my sympathies are with the origi 
nal tramp, his uncouthness having quite won 
me. 




THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 

LAST night the fete opened with the cus 
tomary torchlight procession. The small 
boys were happy. Drummers and trum 
peters struck up the march, and through the 
village wound the picturesque procession, 
the gamins leading, bearing Chinese lanterns 



THE FOURTEENTH OE JULY 2 7 

attached to long poles. Behind them came 
the musicians, playing in earnest ; then the 
firemen, with huge, flaming torches. Men 
and boys gradually joined the ranks, and the 
company steadily swelled, gaining new recruits 
at every halt for drinks. 



. 




The effect of the lights coming up the 
street, out of the darkness, was very pretty 5 
and, though I had already seen several similar 
parades, I enjoyed its simple picturesqueness 
as much as ever. 

After winding through the main street, 
from one end of the village to the other, 
that everybody should have some of the 
show, as Palmyre put it, they halted before 



28 MY VILLAGE 

the " Mairie," and closed the performance 
with a spirited rendering of the u Marseil 
laise." Colignon, master of ceremonies, 
that ubiquitous haircutter, bar-tender, shoe 
maker, musician, and general-utility man, 
was in his glory. Proudly he threw his shoulders 
back and beat the measure, sympathetically 
modifying his dignified rigidity with the touch 
ing parts of the music. The faithful band did 
its best, each man playing as though his life 
depended on it, great cords standing out on 
sturdy necks, eyes reaching out towards the 
music sheet. To them their functions appear 
as a serious matter, and they put their whole 
soul into the work ; while the sympathetic 
audience attentively drank in their strains. 

Numerous rounds of drinks kept the 
enthusiasm up to " Marseillaise " pitch, and 
the fete was ushered in with the proper spirit. 

To-day the band, in full force, assembled 
on the village green. The mayor impres 
sively presented the flags to the standard- 
bearers. Then the music religiously struck 
up the " Marseillaise," the mayor and local 
authorities respectfully standing bareheaded. 



THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 29 

Another patriotic air followed close on the 
heels of the " Marseillaise," and now the 
celebration was officially under way. 

Down the street again filed the noisy, 
enthusiastic band. Again every man played 




with his whole soul ; and ofF they went to 
give the people of Sergy their share of 
" Marseillaise." 

Meanwhile the gymnastic society, which 
had just put in an appearance, performed in 
the public square. The young boys, in their 
white costumes, looked bright and smart. In 
turn they performed on the horizontal bar and 



30 MY VILLAGE 

parallel bars ; then went through the squad 
drill, with some very pretty figures ; and they 
did it with a good hearty spirit. What was 
lacking in harmony of movement was made 
up by individual energy, quite as one would 
wish from a club of boys who spent their 
time in the fields ploughing or harvesting. 

After the gymnastic performances, the fire 
men gave their little exhibition. Good, hon 
est souls, though they work with a will, they 
are fated always to look very funny. Their 
sincerity and seriousness alone are ludicrous. 
As though the safety of the village depended 
on their drill, they do it with all their hearts, 
obeying orders like clock-work, clock-work 
sadly out ol order, one always a little behind 
the other, in their enthusiasm to rush up a 
ladder, dropping an axe, and having igno- 
miniously to come down ao;ain for it. 

Now, in the middle of their performance, 
band music is heard coming up the street. 
The spectators cruelly slight the show, and 
rush ofF to see the new attraction. It is the 
Remy fire-brigade, also playing. Their chief 
draws them up in line, or, rather, pushes them 



THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 31 

individually into position. The mayor of 
Valombre reviews them, and does the honors, 
inviting all hands to take a drink. In a 
moment the door of the saloon is alive with 
a stream of humanity struggling in. Every 
body, more or less, joins the firemen in their 
libations. 

A few vigorous tunes from the band, and 
gradually the crowd disperses. It is dinner 
time. 

Night brings every one back. A row of 
Chinese lanterns, alternated with different 
colored glasses, burning tallow wicks, strung 
on a wire stretched around and through the 
" square," light up the green. Here the ball 
is to be held. 

The crowd gathers steadily ; the girls wait 
ing impatiently for the dancing to begin. 
Four chairs, placed on a slightly elevated 
platform, await the musicians, who seem 
slow in coming. The crowd is growing 
impatient. Ah ! at last, there they are ! 
They wire and scrape to tune their fiddles, 
and finally play a waltz. 

Timidly the first couple steps forward ; the 



32 MY VILLAGE 

movement is given. From every side the 
rush fills the green. Sturdy peasants swing 
their partners around the square. The grass 
has been cut, but the ground is fearfully un 
even. Hopping is the order of the day, or, 
rather, night. 

Bumping and butting each other, the noisy 
couples labor across the green, up and down, 
then across, and so on, until the orchestra 
decides that this dance has had enough music, 
and stops. 

The old women are grouped about the 
enclosure, smiling and happy. The few 
benches are crowded ; standing room only 
is the order of things. 

Picturesque groups of spectators, old men, 
old women, dressed up for the occasion, look 
gleefully on. The young girls, of course, 
are in their best ; the boys likewise. Here 
and there a group of city people add their 
note of color, with the bright costumes of the 
women ; while a steady movement saunters 
round and round. Occasionally a new 
couple is caught by the music, and springs 
into the arena ; away they go, up and down, 
round and off. 



THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 33 

A happv peasant who has drunk too much 
starts across the ring, dancing his way, occa 







sionally colliding with some one. Hut every 
body is too happy to mind such a trifle ; and he 
3 



34 MY VILLAGE 

safely reaches the other end, only to start 
wildly back again. 

Still it is surprising how few drunken 
people are to be seen, though thus at the end 
of a day s fete, when more might reasonably 
have been expected. 

The musicians take but a short rest be 
tween dances, and start the movement again, 
steadily growing livelier and noisier. The 
polka and quadrille are the popular dances, 
a quadrille quite old-fashioned and decidedly 
picturesque in its curious figures and turns. 
Even the clumsiest peasant has his dance, 
dragging his partner after him, if not grace 
fully, at least with a will. 

And so it goes, hour after hour, getting 
noisier and happier. Twelve o clock has 
struck. Still the movement is as lively as 
ever ; enthusiasm is aroused. Valombre only 
gets a chance once a year, so she intends 
getting all the good out of it while it is 
going. 

Towards one o clock the dancers become 
thinned out. And now the timid and 
awkward, who have been waiting a quiet 



THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY 35 

moment, try their luck. Fat women and 
clumsy men, everybody must be able to say 
that he has danced. 

Two o clock. The roads leading in dif 
ferent directions are spotted with tired groups, 
working homewards by moonlight. Here and 
there an extra-tired figure lurches up against 
a wall, rebounding into the street, drunk, 
hut happy and harmless. 

For hours still I hear the violins squeaking 
away. The noise from the " green " be 
comes feebler and feebler ; gradually the 
weary orchestra thinks that it is time to 
stop, and the ball is ended, to be repeated 
just one year from date. 




DESIRE 

HALF-PAST cloven was striking by the 
u Mairie " clock as, through the mud and dark 
ness, I trudged back from the depot, where 
I had seen a friend off for Paris, warily pick 
ing my steps to avoid floundering into some 
treacherous pool too deep for my sabots. 

As I turned up my lane, a miscalculated 
lurch sent me splashing into a good-sized 
brook, a creation of the late storm. While 
wading out of this as best I could, signs of 
unusual commotion met my eyes. Through 



DfiSIRfi 37 

Celestine s open door the light was stream 
ing out into the rainy night. Something, I 
felt, must be going wrong to have kept the 
old folks up till this late hour. 

Hastening forward, I was met at the thresh 
old by the old woman, who had advanced on 
hearing my step. Rushing out, she seized 
me convulsively by the arm, crying : " O 
Mon Dieu ! Monsieur I my poor man is dy 
ing ! " On entering, I found old De sire 
stretched on his bed gasping for breath, a 
couple of neighbors, old women, staring 5m- 
potently but sympathetically at the sufferer. 

The old man appeared to be at the point 
of death, an ominous rattle in his throat, his 
arms and hands quite cold. The sight was 
pitiful, this poor old storm-and-weather- 
worn pair, both over seventy, thus appar 
ently to be torn abruptly apart after half a 
century of life together. Though I felt that 
the end was approaching, I tried to en 
courage the old woman by telling her that 
there was no immediate danger; that the 
doctor would soon be here, and all be well. 
But, to add to the calamity, the local doctor 



38 MY VILLAGE 

was away at " L Isle Adam," four miles up 
the river, and we feared that the old neigh 
bor, Auguste, sent out would miss the last 
train and have to go on foot, necessitating a 
longer wait. 

The situation was painfully trying as, with 
out being able to help him, we watched the 
poor old man suffering his life away, no one 
knowing what to do, and each anxious to do 
something. The application of mustard 
plasters exhausting our knowledge of emer 
gency treatment, we could only helplessly wait 
and watch the painfully slow-moving hand 
of the clock, calculating the time when the 
doctor, if found, might arrive. Every minute 
seemed an hour ; and we grew old waiting. 

Celestine sat by the bedside, silently suffer 
ing, her shadow thrown grotesquely on the 
wall as though to mock at her grief. The 
pinched face of Desire , with its many 
wrinkles, earned in the battles of life, was 
distorted by the intense suffering which welled 
up from his heaving chest. From time tc 
time, in agony, he feebly threw up his hand, 
tossing his poor old head from side to side, 



DfiSIRfi 



39 



groaning, " I m dying," or " Pray God that 
I die ; " to which the old woman earnestly 
responded, " No ; pray God that you live, on 
the contrary." 

And thus for three hours the agony con 
tinued, and still no doctor. 




Carvol had volunteered to go for Achille, 
the sick man s son, who lived at Bleville, 
also four miles away ; and, just when 
waiting had become torture, he arrived, 
breathless and bareheaded. Celestine threw 
herself into his arms and wept her pent- 
up tears. After embracing his mother, 



40 MY VILLAGE 

Achille, a fine-strapping blacksmith of about 
thirty-eight years of age, hung over the bed 
to kiss his father, crying, " Papa, what s the 
matter ? " Finding that we had been wait 
ing for the doctor, and feeling the importance 
of every minute, he dashed out to rouse the 
butcher and borrow his horse, to find the 
doctor at any cost. His anxiety and mental 
suffering were painful as he tore up and down 
before the butcher s door, knocking and call 
ing, waking the echoes throughout the deat-hlv 
quiet village. 

The rain beat ruthlessly down ; the storm- 
clouds dashed rapidly across the face of the 
moon, adding to the sadness of the moment ; 
but, though now drenched to the skin, he did 
not feel the rain or wind. He could not 
rouse an answer from within, and, too im 
patient to wait, started at a run down the 
street for another neighbor s, where he might 
find a horse, leaving me to bang away at the 
butcher s door. Fortunately, just here, the 
long-hoped-for doctor drove up, splashing 
through the mud. Auguste clambered out 
of the carriage to show the way, while 
Achille fairly dragged the doctor along. 



DfiSIRfi 41 

Our relief was mighty. The strain of 
thus impotently and impatiently waiting had 
become agonizing ; and now that he who 
could do something was here, we breathed 
again, and hailed him as a savior. Rosalie 
could not refrain from announcing it in her 
way, saying, " Just the same it makes you 
breathe freer when some one is here in whom 
you have confidence," and her remark summed 
up our feeling. 

The doctor hastily examined the patient, 
listening to the heart s now enfeebled sound, 
the movement of the lungs, etc. After a few 
brief questions, and, demanding a piece of 
paper, he sat down and quickly wrote out a 
prescription, announcing the trouble as a 
congestion of the lungs, ordering immediate 
plasters all over the patient legs, arms, 
back, and front. 

The old man, who seemed to have fallen 
into a comatose state, aroused at once under 
the influence of the doctor s presence, show 
ing decided signs of life, though, when the 
latter had left, the reaction from this excite 
ment lett him quite prostrated. 



42 MY VILLAGE 

Achille went off on the run with his pre 
scription. The apothecary lived across the 
river another two miles away. Everybody 
and everything seemed to be at unreason 
able distances, out of reach, this night above 
all. 

A feeling of half tranquillity now pervaded 
the room for a moment, when, suddenly, an 
other doctor who had been sent for first, but 
not found, came in. On examining the sick 
man he pronounced the same diagnosis as the 
other, and, though now his services were not 
needed, his medical pride at the idea of a 
competitor having been before him was 
aroused, and he set to work applying im 
provised " dry cups " to the patient s breast. 
This consisted in heating and expanding the 
air in an ordinary glass by burning in it a 
piece of paper ; then, hastily turning the 
glass bottom up on the chest of the sufferer, 
the rarefied air enclosed at once creating a 
suction that raised a large swelling beneath 
the glass and relieved the congested blood 
vessels. The results of this operation were 
quite wonderful, and, after applying a dozen 



DfiSIRfi 43 

or more, the relief shown by the old man 
was most decided. His extremities again 
became warm, his eyes brightened, and his 

J O 

breathing became easier and more regular. 
He himself took an active interest in the 
proceeding, remarking, " That relieves me," 
though at first, as a stolid peasant, he had 
resisted, saying, u It 11 do no good." By 
the time Achille got back, he was out of all 
immediate danger, being even bright enough 
to crack a joke on the sad appearance of so 
many empty glasses. Reaching out his hand, 
he beckoned to me. As I advanced and took 
it, he thanked me gratefully for my efforts. 
I tried to cheer him, speaking into his ear 
on account of his deafness, telling him that 
we would soon have him up ; but he seemed 
sceptical about that, saying dolefully, " I guess 
I m finished." 

Now, as peace and happiness had again 
come into the hearts of the assistants, seeing 
that I could be of no further assistance, I 
went out, bidding all good-night. Day was 
breaking. 

Later in the dav, when I looked in, he was 



44 MY VILLAGE 

doing as well as could be expected, but 
very impatient at being forced to lie 
abed. Achille, tired out, was trying hard 
to keep awake ; while Celestine, busy about 
her work, showed the strain much less than 
he did. 

In a few days Desire was up, sitting in 
the sun, pale and weak. In answer to my 
queries as to the state of things, he sadly re 
sponded, " It does n t go at all." He wanted 
to get to work again. 

Gradually he gained strength and walked, 
or rather hobbled, around like a broken-down 
old horse, simply waiting for death. But, 
little by little, he grew stronger, and took ad 
vantage of it to work in the fields. Faithful 
old draught-horse, work had become such a 
part of himself that he was ill from being 
kept from it. 

Some days later, when we had come to the 
conclusion that he was well out of danger, I 
was breathlessly informed by Rosalie, one 
morning, that the old man had had another 
attack during the night, and had nearly 
passed away. I hastened at once to the 



DESIRfi 45 

cottage to see him, and found him sadly 
wrenched and wasted after his night s ordeal. 
He shook hands with me, but could say 
nothing. 

Day after day, days drawn out into weeks, 
the old man keeps up the tight with death. 
But he must soon go. Occasionally he be 
comes delirious, and seems to live again the 
past, when, having been embroiled in the re 
sistance to Napoleon the Third s coup d etat, 
he was arrested and tried for his life. Once, 
raising himself suddenly in bed, he pointed to 
a corner, crying that his enemies were there, 
coming to take him again ; then, seeing his 
son, he shouted, " We two, Lantern, " the 
son having acquired the nickname as a boy, 
u we two will make a republic." 

Celestine fusses about from one end of the 
room to the other, keeping up a desultory 
conversation, mainly with herself : u Wait, 
old man, we re going to fix you up a soup ; " 
" One can see by his voice that he s getting 
better ; " "I really was afraid, mon enfant, 
you know." 

Achille comes in hungry, and sets to eat- 



46 MY VILLAGE 

ing bread and asparagus furiously and noisily. 
The old man, aroused by the proceeding, 
whispers, " I 11 have a little soup too, you 
know." " All right, then," responds Celes- 
tine, " you re going to have it," and bustles 
about the stove, lighting the fire with a bunch 
of dried pea husks. It splutters a moment, 
then goes out. " Did any one ever see such 
a contrarying thing ? " she says ; " but one 
can t keep the stove going all day in this hot 
weather. Bother to bother ! wait a little." 
Another effort, another failure. The draught 
is poor. Finally it catches ; the soup is 
heated ; too hot ! she passes it into a plate 
to cool, then hands it to the sick man, with 
many encouraging comments. He has sud 
denly rallied, and even cheerfully cracks a 
joke while taking his soup ; then rolls over 
and sleeps, while Achille desperately tries to 
keep his eyes open, but surges heavily for 
ward on the table, and falls into a heavy, 
feverish sleep. Celestine, alone left awake, 
sits down and, with her chin in her hand, 
sighs an accompaniment to the heavy breath 
ing of her men. 



DfiSIRfi 47 

And so the old man s sickness dragged 
on, to-day, bright and cheerful ; to-mor 
row, apparently at the point of death. The 
strain of waiting, hoping, and fearing is tell 
ing on his wife and son. Poor Achille, I 
pity him ! He walks back and forth before 
the door, as though to keep watch that death 
might not enter. Unable to remain and 
see his father s suffering, and in as great pain 
himself, the pain of anxiety, he distractedly 
trims the vine or clears up the garden, where 
the weeds have taken advantage of the old 
man s sickness. He says graphically, " This 
waiting makes me grow old." Desire , com 
ing out of a long swoon, missed his son and 
asked for him. Celestine told him that he 
had gone into the garden. On hearing this, 
the sick man s tears came into his eyes, and 
he turned his face to the wall. This, to 
him, was the most trying thing to bear, to 
know that his work was being undone by 
the hated weeds and lack of care. His wife 
appreciated his feelings ; but, as she said, " I 
could not console him ; I did not know what 
to say." Poor old woman ! Only by actions 



48 MY VILLAGE 

could she express her feelings, unskilled in 
the use of empty words. " Truly," she 
added, " I could find nothing to say ; but it 
agonized me to see him suffer so." 

Suddenly, the end had come ; Achille 
and I were called in haste to see the old 
man die. Celestine, now completely broken 
down, rushed weeping out at the door, 
unable to bear the sight, and, covering 
her head with her apron, leaned sobbing 
against the outer wall. Achille fell over 
the bed, embracing his dying father, weeping 
bitterly. 

Though all had looked forward to this 
moment, it was still terrible to bear. The 
scene was intensely pathetic. We watched 
the old man slowly die ; watched and waited, 
still waited, in terrible suspense, still no 
change, until, at last, to our great surprise, 
he came back to life, calling for his wife and 
son. 

But now this strain of seeing him go and 
come became almost worse than having it 
over with. And so often did it happen, that 
a curious and, to me, amusing revulsion of 



DfiSIRfi 49 

feeling set In among the neighbors. They 
began to feel that the old man was taking 
too long about it. As Rosalie almost in 
dignantly remarked, " He ought to die or 
live, and have done with it. One can t al 
ways live in suspense, and a good deal of 
time is lost." The practical peasant spirit 
was coming to the surface. 

I hus the fight dragged on. A few days 
later, Achille dropped in on me as I sat 
smoking, to announce the result of the doc 
tor s last visit. All was going well. He 
was on his way to Re my to rill another pre 
scription. As he lingered bv the gate, I 
asked him to sit down and smoke. Oh, no; 
he had n t the time ; he must go right of}". But 
still he might smoke a cigarette. The peas 
ant is never really in a hurry. I offered him 
a seat, but he waved it aside. He preferred 
standing. Here he began a dramatic harangue 
on the vicissitudes of life in general. Achille 
is a great talker, and proud of his power. 
He surprised me by starting in with saying 
that, though the grief at the danger in which 
his father was now lying aftected him greatly, 
4 



50 MY VILLAGE 

as it naturally should a son, he felt a greater 
grief for the ouvrier. This being too vague 
for me, I asked him to explain. He floridly 
explained that, by the ouvrier, he meant that 
to see that old man who had worked " like a 
mercenary," with bowed back over the field 
for sixty years, dying in need, instead of be 
ing guaranteed a pension with which to end 
his few remaining years, free from worry, 
was to him more terrible than death. 

Then, sitting down, and leaning his bushy, 
enormous head forward beneath the shade of 
the lamp, with eyes shining excitedly, he un 
loaded to me his pet theory as to how things 
should be arranged. The government should 
force every employer to pay a contribution of 
so much, if only two cents per dav, a head 
for every workman employed, the money 
coming indirectly from the men s wages. 
This to be kept up for thirty years, at the 
end of which time the workman should re 
tire, receiving a small but sufficient pension 
from the interest on the fund, and thus be 
enabled to end his days without the need of 
charitable societies. 



DfiSTRfi 51 

He had his scheme elaborately theorized 
and arranged, so that, according to the wages 
received, the tax should be greater or less, 
also allowing for the dangers and unhealthi- 
ness of certain trades, and, accordingly, short 
ening the number of years to work before 
reaping the benefit. All of this, to me, 
seemed far from the point in question, his 
father being his own employer, and, instead 
of dying in need, having by his own efforts 
amassed a comfortable pittance. 

But Achille s views were too broad for 
isolated cases. He did not stop at such 
trifles. He did not want any society, no 
matter how honorable, to have charge of 
the money ; for, as he tritely put it, stop 
ping for a moment to relight his cigarette, 
which had been allowed to go out in the 
excitement, the men, at any time, might 
" skip off"" with the capital, and the labor 
of years go for naught. He wanted the 
state to take charge of it ; for the state 
would, of necessity, always exist, and there 
fore be reliable. And for an hour he plied 
his tongue and eloquence, leaving me the 



52 MY VILLAGE 

simple expedient of listening and looking 
interested. 

Getting out of breath on the subject, 
figuratively speaking, he switched oft" to tell 
me how Lafayette and Washington had 
formed the American Republic. This, 
simply to show me the extent of his general 
knowledge. Then, having pumped himself 
fairly dry, he suddenly sprang up, remember 
ing his errand, just when I, in desperation, 
had begun to think seriously of reminding 
him of it ; and away he went, now thoroughly 
in a hurry, disappearing in the darkness, leav 
ing a friendly " Au revoir ! floating in his 

& J o 

wake. 

Meanwhile the sick man still lives on, 
though now his courage has left him. His 
cheerful spirit is tired out. He says he 
wants to die ; he is tired of lying on his back 
while the fields need him. In occasional 
moments of revolt, he swears that he will 
take his spade and go out where the earth 
is calling to him. But, poor old fellow, he 
can only do so in his mind. The worn-out 
body will never work again. 



Dfismfi 53 

Neighbors come in to take a last look at 
him, sitting silently, hut sympathetically, by 
the bed. And even the priest ventured in, 
though he knew the ground was dangerous, 
Desire not being a church-goer. The old 
man would not listen, and mustered strength 
enough to wave him away. 

To-day, as I passed the house, the door 
was closed, and I knew that all must be over. 
At the foot of the street I met Leroux, the 
hotel-keeper. He stopped me with the re 
mark, " Your neighbor has passed away." 
Alfred came to me, saying, " Your friend is 
no more." We went into the house to 
gether, where Celestine, busy sweeping the 
stairs, burst into tears at sight of me, throw 
ing herself into my arms crying;, " Mv poor 
man is dead." And though we all re 
gretted the old man, every one felt a great 
relief, now that it was ended. Even Achille 
brightened up. The long doubtful waiting 
had at last settled itself into a definite 
conclusion, and, though a painful one, he 
preferred it to the slow torture of the long- 
drawn-out sickness. 



54 



MY VILLAGE 



Two days later, what had been De sire 
was buried from the church ; the priest, quite 
overlooking his uncomfortable experience at 
the sick man s bedside, forgivingly saying, 
" Requiescat in pace." 





FIRST COMMUNION 

" FETE " for the priest. To-day he took 
first place and reigned triumphant. The little 
girls, dressed in white with long gauze veils, 
looked very pretty, as they came to take the 
first communion. 

Proud parents were arrayed in their best, 
and looked supremely awkward. Great red 
faces shone triumphantly above expansive 
white shirt fronts, while huge, gnarled hands 
hung clumsily beneath black sleeves, grasp 
ing handfuls of air in their uneasy restlessness. 



MY VILLAGE 



Stout matrons, suffering within tight-laced 
corsets, perspired freely, and grew redder, 
redder even than their natural sun-given tint. 
Absurd little bonnets of gay flowers, suitable 
for girls, often decked these masses of un 
comfortable but proud humanity. It was 
evident that the matron s heart 
had been taken by the pretty, 
bright colors, and, regardless of 
suitability, which had doubtless 
never received a thought, she had 
made the purchase of her taste. 
None but strangers could appre 
ciate the incongruity ; and she, 
good soul, would never know that 
anything was wrong. Verily the 
old civilization is going ; the 
peasant is hurrying to keep in the ranks with 
the onward march. His efforts are grotesquely 
comical, but then he will never know it ; and 
when, through several generations, he does 
learn to wear the tall hat and black coat, and 
his wife the bonnet, his struggle will have 
seemed light ; his ignorance preventing him 
from discovering how absurd his evolution 
appeared to those he attempted to imitate. 








HARVEST, 1893 

THE plain above the village is alive with 
busy harvesters. The rye has been cut, and 
the wheat is almost levelled ; even the oats 
are falling beneath the reaper s guillotine. 

Where but a week ago the graceful 
plateau was resplendent with yellow rye 



5 8 MY VILLAGE 

and golden grain swaying with the breeze, 
now it is spotted with stacked sheaves of 
every form and size, in glorious variety. As 
far as the eye searches to the right, to the 
left, long undulating slopes present their 
spaced sentry-lines of dusky golden stacks, 
like a mighty cereal encampment. Pros- 




perky and plenty reign supreme. One feels 
better for the sight, and takes renewed faith 
in nature. 

Busy men and women, tying sheaves and 
stacking grain, spot the brilliant landscape 
with tireless motion. Great carts are loaded 
and drawn away. Ricks are climbing to the 
sky ; restless human insects clambering on 
their sides and tops. 



HARVEST, 1893 



59 



Carefully and skilfully the sheaves are 
piled, the grain towards the centre, ever 




i/V 



mounting up, up, sloping gracefully to the 
conical crest, which is roofed in thatch, form- 



60 MY VILLAGE 

ing a solid round house; and the rains of 
winter may beat upon it ruthlessly as they 
will, but all impotent to penetrate to the 
golden food sheltered beneath. 

At daybreak the harvesters begin their 
work, and night alone can stop them ; fu 
riously working sixteen and even eighteen 
hours a day, mowing by the piece. The 




quicker it is done, the more profit. From 
far away Boulogne and Calais they come in 
groups, for the season ; lodged at the farm 
houses, sleeping upon bundles of straw to 
spring to work before sunrise, indefatigablv 
swinging their great broad scythes. 

Happily the patent mowing-machines have 
not yet invaded Valombre and driven off the 
picturesque, though, sooner or later, I fear that 
day must come. Then woe to the artists ! they 
will have to strike farther into the country. 



HARVEST, 1893 



6l 




Here and there I see interesting reapers 
who cut with a large straight sickle ; with the 
other hand hooking the grain /" 
from their , j^^M 

,^M* 

path as it V f^^ /l 

falls; thus ^^F 

both hands, 

each armed with an imple 
ment, work together. They 
advance along a short swath, 
then retreat, cutting as they 
back, at the same time rolling the cut wheat 
beneath their feet ; each 
advance and retreat rep 
resenting 
a sheaf. 
- Though 

this labor is hard, it 
quickly accomplishes the 
task. 

The mower with his 
N- * scythe, on the contrary, 

sweeps majestically along, while his helper, 
following closely behind, gathers the cut grain. 
The blade is soft, and has often to be whetted. 




62 



MY VILLAGE 




Occasionally a rest is taken to unmount the 
scythe , and on an improvised anvil carried 
for the purpose, it is 
pounded ; nto shape, as 
it seems to be contin 
ually getting bruised 
and twisted. It is then 
whetted to a razor 
edge, and the work 
goes on : while the 
sun beats relentlessly 
down upon the devoted heads of the laborers. 
After the field is cut and stacked, the 
gleaner 
comes to 
take her 
turn. One 
old woman 
I talked 
with has 
been faith 
fully gath 
ering over 

the field for several days, and at dusk I always 
meet her struggling wearily along beneath a 




HARVEST, 1893 63 

great sheaf of jetsam. She tells me she thus 
gathers nearly enough to keep her through the 
winter, either grinding it herself, or trading it to 
the baker for bread, hard-working old soul. 
And thus the harvest brings something to all. 




Sturdy, simple types are these mowers, 
strong, gentle-speaking, good-natured and pa 
tient ; and tough as iron. The threshing- 
machine, worked by horse-power, is already 
at work, a hideous practical monstrosity 
which has driven to the grave the clumsy but 
picturesque flail. I notice the sexton and his 
wife cutting the field behind the church. It 



64 MY VILLAGE 

is amusing to see the result of professional 
habits ; the sexton, still remaining sexton, 
though wielding the scythe, dignified and 
solemn, quite above a smile, a certain stiff 
formality even characterizing his manner of 
reaping, stiff-legged and unbending, decidedly 




out of harmony with the occupation and his 
fellow-reapers. 

As he moves along the face of the field 
with the sweep of a conqueror, his wife fol 
lows closely, gathering up the newly-cut grain 
in sheaves, and spreading these systemati 
cally in rows. At regular and frequent in 
tervals he stops to whet his blade, carrying 
the stone in a horn pouch suspended from 
his belt. Quite often they stop to rest, 



HARVEST, 1893 65 

lounging in picturesque attitudes on the cut 
rye. During these rests he repairs his 
scythe, bruised bv occasional contact with 




the ground, as in his mowing he cuts within 
several inches of the earth. These repairs 
add another style of picturesque note to the 
general performance, and all about the plain 
I hear the " clink," "clink," of busy hammers. 



66 



MY VILLAGE 



Lunches are frequent and copious during 
harvest-time ; and I notice that the peasants 
while being great workers are also great eaters, 
steadily keeping the machine well coaled up. 

The stacking of the cut grain is quite as 



:-v: V / 







interesting as the cutting. There are at least 
a half-dozen different styles of piling em 
ployed, according to idea, taste, or need. 
The capping of the small stacks is a most 
novel performance. After a half-dozen or 
more sheaves have been stacked on end, 
the whole is covered bv an inverted sheaf 



HARVEST, 1893 



67 



so cleverly thrown as to cover completely 
the upper half of the stack, leaving this crown 
ing sheaf bottom up, while its grain gracefully 
blends downward over the stack, thus form 
ing a watershed against the rain. 

Every one is busy ; idleness appears to be 
unknown at this time. The women work as 
steadily as the men. One wonders how they 
get time to do their housework. Undoubtedly 
they have reduced it to a very simple system 
during this stress. Harvest-time always gives 
me the impression of happiness and pros 
perity. The goddess of plenty seems to 
have emptied her cornucopia upon the land. 




KAISER S ILIAD 

KAISER seemed to be well launched on the 
road to become a drunkard like his sire, when, 
by a happy chance, a fortunate avenue of sal 
vation presented itself. Franck, the letter- 
carrier, resigned his position, going to St. 
Denis ; and Kaiser was at once pushed into 
his place, soon appearing in a brand-new 
uniform, doing duty. And things seemed to 
be coming out right for Rosalie. His work 
keeping him away from promising com 
panions, promising as bottle-emptiers, it was 
not unreasonable to hope that at last he was 
safely placed. But, alas ! the best-laid plans 
of men are oft disappointed. After a month s 
good service, he showed signs of the old 
disease, culminating in a delirious drunk. 

As I sat quietly reading after supper, I was 
disturbed by the familiar dispute and racket 
next door, heard, too plainly for my peace, 
through the walls. This time it was excep- 



KAISER S ILIAD 69 

tionally noisy. Of course I supposed it was 
only Carvol again getting into harness for the 
winter campaign. Sounds as of a fight came, 
muffled by the walls, to my ears. I became 
uneasy, having a vague feeling that I ought to 
interfere. " Pshaw ! " at last I said to my 
self, " it is nothing, only the old game," and 
so read on, lighting a new pipe to calm my 
scruples. 

Bang, bang, thump, thump, shouts and 
cries. Decidedly something is wrong this 
time. I rose up in spite of myself, and, 
while hesitating as to whether I should visit 
the scene of action, my door was suddenly 
thrown open, and Fifie, in a dilapidated, 
dishevelled state, hysterically crying, rushed 
in. " Oh ! come, Kaiser is killing mamma," 
showing me her shoulder torn bare in the 
struggle, the sleeve hanging in rags. 

Here at last was my long-feared tragedy. 
Out I rushed at once around to Rosalie s 
door, which I found closed. I seized it, 
violently pushing to gain an entrance. It 
resisted as though held from within. Putting 
my shoulder to the door, I forced my way in, 



70 MY VILLAGE 

to be at once ordered out by Rosalie. She 
was ashamed to have me participate in her 
disgrace, saying she wanted no help. 

As I reluctantly retreated, through the door 
I saw Kaiser wildly jumping around, upset 
ting tables and chairs in his drunken folly, 
apparently suffering from the " horrors," 
technically known as delirium tremens, though 
to me it appeared as though part, and perhaps 
a great part, of his folly was the regular 
drunken man s trick of pretending to be 
drunker than he is, partly as a pose, and 
partly, as in this case, to arouse sympathy ; 
and a strong desire came over me to quiet 
him. Having been so startled and horrified 
by Fifie s alarm, the reaction of my feelings 
made me indignant ; I wanted to make him 
pay for the fright he had caused me. I 
offered Rosalie to quiet him ; but she would 
not listen, and sent me off. 

In disgust I returned to my reading. But 
it was useless to try. The racket ever in 
creasing next door, with Fifie steadily crying 
and shouting for fear her mother would be 
hurt, jarred too strongly on my nerves. 



KAISER S ILIAD 71 

Rosalie came out in despair, throwing her 
self down on the road, weeping bitterly, while 
poor Fifie hung sobbing over her, nearly out 
of her senses. I inwardly cursed the young 
scamp, the cause of this grief, and outwardly 
tried to console them, telling Rosalie that he 
would soon tire himself, and then go to sleep, 
explaining that his madness was only mo 
mentary. But she could listen to nothing, 
and cried to have some one go for the doctor. 
A neighbor coming along was sent after 
Carvol, at work on the bateau /avoir. 

As Kaiser tried to come out, Rosalie 
begged me to hold the door shut. By this 
time the whole neighborhood was aroused. 
Gradually, one by one, lanterns appeared in 
the black night, lighting up curious startled 
faces. " What s the matter ? " " What s 
the matter ? " till at last a good-sized group 
gathered about the door which I held, much 
to my disgust and Rosalie s despair. I dis 
liked my position very much ; but she would 
not let me go in, so I had to face it. 

Just here Carvol appeared on the scene, 
furious. He grabbed the door-knob to go in, 



72 MY VILLAGE 

but it would n t move. Kaiser had turned 
the key, the drunkard s usual malice. Around 
the back way Carvol got in, and at once quiet 
was restored, fear of the father instantly curing 
Kaiser of his desire to make a noise. " Ah ! " 
cried indignant Carvol, " had I come five 
minutes ago, I would have strangled you, 
you young whelp." The public scandal is 
the cause of his fury and Rosalie s despair. 
Poor Fifie is only frightened. 

On the following day, overcome by the 
disgrace, Carvol gave in Kaiser s resignation 
at the post-office. The latter has again 
disappeared. And thus ends what we had 
hoped was to be Kaiser s salvation. Alas ! 




"LA CHASSE" 

FALL has arrived. The shooting-season is 
opened, and the " chasseurs " have donned 
their costumes and guns, and, with their 
dogs, are away to the fields. 

Occasionally the report of a gun breaks 
the stillness. Enthusiastically and faithfully 



74 MY VILLAGE 

they march through stubble and brush until 
thoroughly tired, returning with the air of 
having seriously done their duty. Big boys ! 
the pleasure of carrying a gun quite intoxi 
cates them, and they are happy. So the 
cbasse is really a good thing. True, they 
rarely get any game ; but that does n t count. 
They are hunters hunting ; that is the prin 
cipal thing. Illusion is better than reality. 

Once in a while a stray partridge meets 
death at their excited hands ; but this does 
not happen often enough to make the sport 
in any way murderous. It is simply an 
exhilarating exercise ; as a boy, I used to do 
it with pleasure ; but the Valombre hunter 
treats it and himself with great dignity. He 
is the bearer of a gun, and has paid twenty- 
eight francs tax for the right to use it. 
Therefore 

Our druggist is a great hunter, and on the 
first day of the season is out with his gun. 
Unfortunately, he cannot leave his shop, as 
his services when needed are often very much 
needed. So I see him at the corner of his 
house, looking longingly at the meadow be- 



"LA CHASSE" 



75 



yond, yet always with one eye on his shop 
door. He bitterly complains of his sad fate. 
" There," he says, " I saw a sparrow light 
over there in the field, and I can t leave the 
shop ; it s discouraging." Thus he satisfies 
his taste for shooting, while still not letting 
pleasure interfere with business, practical, 
though enthusiastic. 





CELESTINE 

TO-NIGHT I ran my head into the trap. 1 
saw Ce lestine sitting by her tire, and went in 
to ask her about a harvest custom I had 
remarked. 

She gave me the information I was after; 
but then, for a half-hour, gave me a lot more, 



CfiLESTINE 77 

getting warmed up to the work. Her old 
stories and naive ideas were very interesting ; 
but I was in a hurry, and became impatient. 
So I tried to escape, and only got away at 
last by fairly running out at the door, saying 
I had forgotten something pressing. She fol 
lowed close after me, still talking as I went up 
the road into the darkness, gradually raising 
her voice to suit the increasing distance I 
was desperately putting between us. 

Poor old woman, she dearly loves to talk, 
and a listener means much to her. She 
rambled from one subject to another, jump 
ing from to-day back into the past of sixty 
years ago. She told me of her father, and 
the stories he had told her about his times, 
the Revolution, Napoleon, etc. He had 
hoped that she would never see such things 
as he had seen. "But," she added, " every 
epoch has its own wars. I have seen as 
much as he, I think, and perhaps more, 
who knows r " . . . She had been in Paris 
during the coup (fc tat of 51, had clambered 
through the barricades and over the dead, where 
every house was battered by the cannon and 



jS MY VILLAGE 

every window smashed. . . . She had seen 
the siege of Paris in /o 71, seen the German 
conquerors in the home of her fathers. Her 
husband, Desire , had been taken during the 
troubles of 48, and tried for his life. She 
had gone to Paris while he lay in prison, to 
take him food and money. She had then got 
him a lawyer, a good one, " for you know 
one needs the best in such a case," had 
paid him fifty francs for saving her husband. 
" Fifty francs lost, as though I should throw 
it into that pail of water," pointing to the 
bucket beneath the window. 

She told me of the beginning of Valombre s 
prosperity. Fifty years back the peasants, in 
a small way, had commenced taking beans to 
Paris to sell, and from that start had developed 
the present big trade, all Valombre now work 
ing to feed the great capital, taking its gold in 
return for vegetables. 

Before that every one raised less, generally 
just enough for home consumption. Each 
family kept a cow, pigs, etc. ; life was more 
simple and rural. Now cows are almost 
unknown in Valombre, land being too valu- 



CfiLESTINE 79 

able for vegetable-raising to be given up for 
pasturage. Pigs also are no longer raised to 
any extent, every one buying his meat from 
the butcher and pork-dealer instead. 

Then the peasant baked his own bread ; 
now the baker supplies nearly the whole 
village. Telling me about Napoleon, she 
said that he always had lots of trouble, was 
always at war, poor man. She seemed to 
pitv him, saying that " All in power are 
envied by others." " They wanted to take 
his life." " See even the Minister [meaning 
President Carnot], a wicked fellow killed 
him only the other day ; and yet he was a 
good man ; that is, I did n t know him, but 
the papers say so." 




THE CURE 

TO-DAY the priest, on meeting me, very 
warmly invited me to come and see the 
baptism of the new bateau /avoir (laundry- 
house). Perhaps I might see something to 
sketch, etc. 

He is a frank, simple fellow, making no 
fuss about my sketching his religious pro 
cessions. In fact, on the contrary, he gen 
erally asks how I made out, and shows a 
friendly interest in the work, quite over- 



THE CURE 8 I 

looking the fact of my being a heretic. 
Dissenters are so few in France that party 
spirit has not that unchristian venom which 
pervades some countries. 

On mv remarking that I had not vet seen 

J O ^ 

the new altar, he threw up his hands in pity : 
" Oh ! you must see it at once ; it is a marvel 
of beauty : pure Gothic in style," though 
I imagine to him the word Gothic meant 
something very vague. 

He was suffering from a cold, and went 
on to tell me that he had just come from 
the doctor s. " And, worst of all, the doctor 
is laid up. Yes, he got chilled yesterday 
crossing the bridge ; he had to go to Remy, 
to deliver a woman in childbirth, I believe," 
and his tone seemed almost to throw a con 
temptuous blame on this common weakness 
of the fair sex. 

" But do come and see the altar, my altar," 
he added ; " every one says it is beautiful ! " I 
promised ; and after a hearty hand-shake, he 
trotted oft" vigorously up the hill. 

On Sunday, remembering his invitation, I 
went down to the new bateau [avoir, a large 
6 



82 MY VILLAGE 

boat-shed moored by the bank of the river, 
where the washing tor the village is done. 
Each washerwoman hires a position, for a 
tew sous per hour, along the line, the boat 
offering accommodation for about twenty or 
thirty. Where the women wash, it is open, 
having no bottom ; and in the running river 
they wash and rinse, the current carrying 
oft the soap-suds and dirt, their water thus 
being always clean. Hot water is furnished 

O 

them extra, at so much a pail. Clothes are 
soaked over night, hung in the dry-house, 
etc., and though the charges are very small, 
still the business of keeping a bateau /avoir 
is apparently lucrative, as Valombre now has 
two. 

Shortly after my arrival the boat was 
baptized with the title of T Esperance. A 
goodly crowd of villagers had congregated by 
the river to take part in the proceedings. 
Down came the priest with his sexton and 
choir boys, all in every-day dress. They 
disappeared inside the boat for a few minutes, 
reappearing in official costumes, the priest in 
his surplice and skull-cap, the boys in their 



THE CUR6 83 

red caps and gowns, and the sexton in 
cocked hat, with his chain of service about 
his neck. 

Standing on the gang-plank, that all might 
see and hear, the priest, after the customary 
baptismal prayers and hymns, delivered a 
short blessing in a clever tone well suited to 
his audience. He said that but a few months 
ago he had blessed the child of Gabrielle, the 
proprietress of the boat, in his church, but 
now she had brought him a new infant to 
baptize, too big to come into his church, so 
he had to bring his church to it, so to speak. 
Then he enthusiastically blessed right and 
left, getting warmed up to his work, blessing 
Gabrielle, the boat, the business, and all the 
women who came there to wash, really 
" booming " trade by his profuse promises 
of joy and blessing. 

From the boat, he crossed the landing and 
blessed the clothes-room and the clothes 
which should be hung in it. 

Here he again disappeared for a short time, 
reappearing in his ordinary costume. A table 
was spread, laden with wine and cakes, with 



84 MY VILLAGE 

a white baptismal bouquet as a centre piece. 
Here the priest offered a toast, and, glass in 
hand, wished more joy and success to the 
boat, and everybody in general. 

Jolly, straightforward fellow, he suits his 
position capitally ; to keep the people faithful 
to the church, he thus mixes familiarly with 
all their fetes and affairs. 

While the drinking was going on, dragees 
(candies) were offered to all the spectators. 
A pretty young girl passed around a dainty 
little silken bag into which each dipped his 
hand for the sweetmeats. A young man, or 
rather big boy, was supposed to conduct her 
about during this distribution ; but he being 
much the more clumsy and embarrassed of 
the two, she literally led him around. He 
smiled and looked kindly upon the world, and, 
though the air was decidedly cool, carried his 
hat in his hand to show that he knew what 
was expected of him when conducting young 
ladies. This boy amused me considerably ; 
at times I would lose him for a while, though 
the girl was always visible ; but soon again 
see him still being dragged about. The girl 



THE CURfi 85 

suddenly starting in an opposite direction 
from his, as she oftered her candies, seriously 
confused him, and his feet were continually 
getting in his way. 

Another toast ; the glasses are emptied ; 
and the baptismal festival is over. And 
the f Esperance is ready for business. 




JEAN PAUL 

JEAN PAUL, Rosalie s brother, gives me 
his ideas on war, he having served through 
the disasters of 187071. " Ah, no," he 
says, " it is n t fine, war ; it s sad, on the con 
trary. No, it does n t enthuse you ; you see 
the comrades dropping around you, and you 
think that it will soon be your turn. It 
wakes you up, yes, for you fight to protect 
your own hide ; you see an enemv move and 
you shoot at him to stop him shooting at 
you ; that s all there is to it. Oh, no, it 
is n t gay ; it s sad, on the contrary." 

Jean Paul, now a quarryman, stoutly de 
fends his trade, claiming that accidents never 
happen. True a man was killed last spring ; 
and recently Kaiser, who works with Jean 
Paul, was laid up with a crushed finger for a 
couple of weeks. And just now Jean Paul 
himself is limping around with a couple of 
canes, a damaged foot the cause. But still 

* O 



JEAN PAUL 87 

" it s a pretty good trade ; " and when we above 
ground are suffering from the heat of summer, 
they are comfortably cool below. And even 
in winter they are sheltered from the wind 
and rain, while we are exposed to the vary 
ing changes of weather. " No, the trade s 
better than people think. Of course it has 
some drawbacks; but then 

Jean Paul once caught a fifteen pound 
pike in the river, and since bears a great 
reputation, a reputation which has forced 
him to become an ardent fisherman in his en 
deavors to live up to his too suddenly acquired 
renown. And now nearly every day finds 
him with his lame foot and a couple of rods 
sitting by the river, patiently waiting for the 
next big fish, which never comes. 



FIFIE S ROMANCE 

FIFIE S love-affair has become a seriously 
complicated plot, her lover s parents having 
refused to give their consent to a marriage. 
Poor Fifie is broken-hearted, but swears that 
she will not give him up ; and he as firmly 
vows that he will have no other for a wife 
but her. 

He cannot be married without his father s 
permission, being a minor, but is determined 
to remain faithful against all opposition, 
until the necessary years have passed which 
shall free him from legal obedience. 

In a year the state will take him to do his 
service as a soldier ; and for three long years 
Fifie must wait. Oh, the danger of those 
long, long years ! The fear that another fairer 
maid may steal him from her is a great night 
mare to yearning Fifie. Something must be 
done to hold him so that no other claim shall 
be valid. 



FIFIE S ROMANCE 89 

Rosalie s romantic heart is touched. Ro 
salie is a faithful devourer of the continued 
stories of the daily papers, stories read to her 
by Fifie, where both sob in sympathy with 
the trying parts, Fifie s wet voice fairly wail 
ing through the climax, till true love conquers, 
when both, exhausted, dry their tears and take 
up the day s washing. 

So Rosalie encourages her love-lorn daugh 
ter to stand up for her rights, the rights of 
love. Carvol, more practical, and not over 
romantic, seeing no issue to the affair, pro 
tests against his wife s course, and wants the 
matter dropped. But his opposition is worse 
than useless, and only makes Fifie more 
determined and Rosalie more sympathetic ; 
and the flame is fanned into a blaze which 
promises to do damage ; as now Fifie says 
that she will not be separated from her 
Armand, and threatens to go and live with 
him. 

Phew ! this seems to me a dangerous plan, 
and rather startling for quiet, practical, cool- 
headed Valombre ; and I am surprised to 
learn that Rosalie not only does not object, 



QO MY VILLAGE 

but actually encourages Fifie, risking the 
whole future of her daughter s life on this one 
move. This is romance with a vengeance ! 

Their hope is, that once Armand s parents 
see how devoted the lovers are to each other, 
their hearts will be softened, and the reluc 
tant consent be forthcoming. 

Yes, the move has been decided on. Jules 
has come around with his cart and taken 
Fifie s bed and furniture ; and off they have 
started for Pontoise, where Armand is work 
ing. Carvol has gone off mad, he washes 
his hands of the affair ; and the die is cast. 
Now Fortune be kind to the blind ! 

His parents were sorely grieved at the 
serious turn things had taken. His father 
wrote him that he would come and see what 
was to be done. 

Poor Fifie is terribly worried ; the father is 
a well-to-do peasant of Perigord, and she 
knows that he had hoped to make a good 
match for his only son, marrying him to some 
girl who could bring him a good round dot 
which should give him a start in the world ; 



FIFIE S ROMANCE 91 

while poor Fifie has only her love and her 
two willing hands to offer, thus upsetting all 
his dearly cherished hopes. And the father 
is sorely troubled. 

He has come and gone ; and Fifie s hopes 
have risen, for he was kind to her. 

He has given his consent. Though dis 
appointed by this complete upsetting of his 
plans, the kind old man had not the heart to 
separate them, and, after talking it over with 
his wife, gave his permission to the marriage. 

The wedding was very quiet, though 
happy. Fifie s position was rather awkward, 
as now she could not wear in her hair the 
fleur (For anger, the symbol of virginity, at her 
own wedding. This was the only shadow on 
that happy day ; but at that price she had 
won her husband, and could not but feel 
satisfied. Rosalie was triumphant ; and even 
Carvol, now that all had turned out well, 
breathing freer, lent his share of enthusiasm 
to the happy day. 



92 MY VILLAGE 

Six months later. . . . As I came in to-night 
I heard the cry of a baby. It was Fifie s, just 
come into the world. Carvol had been shut 
out, and sat on the doorstep full of drunken 
enthusiasm, but though drunk still very 
quiet, calmly accepting man s subordinate 
position in such moments. 

Armand has been called to do his military 
service. It seems that he has but one year 
to serve. Fifie has taken her baby and 
gone to be near him. Now that he must 
give his time to the state, she bravely sets to 
work to earn a living for herself and baby, 
until his year shall be passed and he can 
return to his work. Humble instance of 
quiet heroism, not uncommon among the 
people, yet rarely known to the world. 

And, still living her romance, Fifie looks 
cheerfully towards the future. 




THE QUARRY 

" ARK you going to work, Kaiser ? " 
" Yes." " Well, take me along ; I want to 
see the quarry." And oft" I went with him 
and Jean Paul. After a long walk across 
the Remy wood, we struck the entrance, 
and, descending a steep plane to a depth of 
about a hundred feet, entered the main avenue 
of the quarry. Here the two men lighted 
their lamps, and led me through a series of 
well-made underground streets. It being 
Sunday, but a few men were working. 



94 



MY VILLAGE 



As . my eyes became accustomed to the 
darkness, I could distinguish what they were 
doing. Lighted only by their small miner s 




lamps, just strong enough to light up the 
spot on which they are working, they were 
jabbing away at the great walls of their cave 
with immense chisels suspended from a frame 
work. Thus they cut out, on each side, the 



. THE QUARRY 95 

great block of white building stone, perhaps 
six feet in width and height, which they wish 
to extract, then a big slice off its base, 
always cutting into the solid wall. Blocks 
are wedged to support the stone. Next they 




- 



cut off another slice, on top, and the block, 
thus detached, drops of its own weight. 
With jack-screws and rollers they dislodge 
it from its place, to be cut and trimmed into 
shape by another set of men. This was Jean 
Paul s occupation, and, a block being ready, 
he set to work. The effects of light and 

O 

shade were very interesting and weird ; shade 



9 6 



MY VILLAGE 



predominating. With great difficulty I 
managed to get a few sketches of the men 
at work. 




But what a terrible trade theirs is ! They 
go down at six o clock in the morning, and 
often stay there till night, scarcely ever know 
ing what the sunlight is like. And yet Jean 
Louis claims that it s a good trade, " cool 



THE QUARRY 97 

in summer, and warm in winter." But to 
me it seemed a terrible breeding-place for 
cripples, accidents happening only too often. 
Yet the men appear to like their work well 
enough. They have become so accustomed 
to it that to them it is quite as pleasant as 
living above ground. Habit works wonders. 



LOCAL POLITICS 

FOUR candidates put themselves up to fill 
Duterte s place as " municipal counsellor." 
Sunday is voting day. The first Sunday s 
vote elected no one. Two of the champions 
retired from the arena, leaving the baker and 
the dry-goods man to fight it out. The fol 
lowing Sunday brought victory to the baker, 
229 votes to 210 for his adversary. 

Now, in wrath, the defeated gentleman has 
tendered his resignation as " chief of the fire- 
brigade." Human, like the rest of the world, 
thus foolishly he gives up his innocent but 



LOCAL POLITICS 99 

picturesque pastime of drilling the valiant 
volunteer squad of pump and hose workers, 
to satisfy his wounded pride. No longer 
will he wear his sword and braided cap. It 
is a pity, for he was very amusing, marching 
with his little band. Doubtless some other, 
equally decorative, will fill his place. Silly, 
silly little man ! The dignity of a rural 
functionary seems to grow inversely to the 
importance of his position and actual value 
to the world. 

He has come back. The sacrifice was too 
great, and he allowed himself to be coaxed 
into again taking up the honors he had laid 
down. He really was not so silly, after all ! 




"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 

FOR the past week the village has been 
getting ready for its annual fete. Great vans 
have come rumbling into town, unloading 
their contents on the " Place." Sheds and 
booths are being erected. The merry-go- 
round has been put together ; and everything 
is active preparation. 

The main road has been cleaned and 
swept. Valombre intends to look its best 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 



IOI 



at the ffae, and the village already wears 
an impatient, expectant air. To-morrow 
the pent-up enthusiasm of a year will run 
wild. 




Sunday. . . . " Tree-dee-tra-ra-ra-dee ! " 
The merry-go-round organ has opened the 
fete. Its terrible racket dominates every 
thing. In five minutes the air is charged 



IO2 



MY VILLAGE 



with the sound. Willingly, or unwillingly, 
every one is drawn towards it. There is no 
resisting its magnetic charm. And from 
every direction and every road a steady 
stream of humanity pours into the village 
square. 




Everybody is in full dress, that is, local 
full dress : stiff new blouses and starched 
bonnets, among the old men and women ; 
antiquated broadcloth suits, with coat-tails of 
phenomenal dimensions, and even tall hats, 
for the next generation of men ; their wives 
in tightly-laced dresses, cracking, or threaten 
ing to, at every seam, the gaudy bonnet crown 
ing all, unhappy looking, but still happy, 
notwithstanding the consciousness of their 
Sunday clothes. The next generation, their 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 103 

sons and daughters, make a desperate en 
deavor to keep up with their Parisian neigh 
bors in dress, affecting their costumes and 
airs, but with most deplorably rustic results. 
The young men are clad in tightly-fitting 
coats which embarrass their movements, and 
choked in stiff collars. Red faces and hands 
shine out painfully from collars and cuffs. 
But their owners are brave, and will die in 
this harness rather than yield. They feel 
that progress demands it of them. 

The girls, but yesterday working in the 
fields under the burning sun, are now arrayed 
in gorgeous costumes, ribbons streaming in 
profusion. They make a better attempt at 
wearing their fine feathers than the boys, 
notwithstanding uneasy hands which uncon 
sciously wander restlessly behind to make 
sure that everything is in place. 

A determined attempt at dignity is made 
at the start ; but the older folks cannot 
long stand the strain, and invite each other 
across the street to the saloon-keeper s. 
A few drinks put them at their ease, and 
inspire a confidence which allows them to 



104 MY VILLAGE 

forget that they are dressed up. They, in 
turn, set the others into a more natural 
movement, and Valombre begins to enjoy 
itself. 

The children are already riding the wooden 
horses. Soon their parents get interested, 
and try it also. Then the crowd catches 
fire, and all is life and joy. A steady stream 
attacks the merry-go-round ; every horse is 
loaded, and away they go in wild dissipation. 
Inside the real horses, the motive power, 
tirelessly tramp round and round, while the 
assistant grinds away furiously on the deadly 
organ. Its stock of three tunes are so 
rapidly repeated that they run together in 
one great crash of groans, squeaks, and 
whistles, till the air is alive with the din, 
and every head buzzing. 

The young men gallantly invite the young 
ladies. The rocking boats have a great suc 
cess ; while the funny, stiff little horses, and 
even the funnier lion with his tail glued 
against his flank in graceful circles, each 
bears its rider, a sturdy lass or lad. The 
enthusiasm is contagious, and those unable to 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE 



I0 5 




find a place look impatiently on, each face 
beaming with good- 
natured life. 

The theatre-circus 
now commences 
boisterously to ad 
vertise its attrac- "\ 
tions, and, being ^ 
the greater novelty, \&gt; 
cuts terribly into S 
the profits of the 
merry-go-round. 

Both organs start up together, that of the 
theatre and the one 

(VJll^E liluTMltf 

^ ^ " - of the merry-go- 
round. The racket 
is deafening. Each 
endeavors to make 
the most noise, as 
noise means suc 
cess. 

The different 
booths are invaded ; 
toys are bought for 
There is a goodly array of 



o. 



the children. 



106 MY VILLAGE 

everything gaudy that can amuse them, 
carts, trumpets, games for the boys, dolls and 
trinkets for the girls. They dazzle the eye 
by their gorgeousness, arrayed by myriads, 
tier upon tier. The busy pedlers bustle 
to and fro, feverishly attending to the steady 
sales. 

Valombre has unloosed its tight pocket- 
strings, and the little ones are reaping a 
harvest of sunshine and joy. Each parent 
competes in generosity with his neighbor. 

The wheel of fortune whirls, clicks, and 
stops ; the winner has gained a bright plate 
of brilliant design, bearing some cheerful 
motto, combining utility and instruction with 
beauty. 

An interested group has surrounded the 
billiard-table. A player endeavors to knock 
the twelve balls out of place in three shots ; 
if successful, a prize is his reward, a glass, 
a plate, etc. ; here all is crockery. Still the 
enthusiasm runs high. Every one must try 
his luck. 

Little stands are promiscuously placed 
among the crowds, each with some game of 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 107 

chance, two cents a chance to gain a pack 
age of tobacco. Whirl the balls swing 
round out drops a number ; the lucky 
holder pockets his prize, and the fun runs 
high. 

Valombre seems for the moment to have 
found the spring of eternal youth. The buzz 
and din is overpowering and contagious ; each 
shouts and laughs ; and the " Place " is alive 
and teeming with animal spirits. No one can 
remain quiet ; those who attempt it must at 
least smile, so that all around is mirth and 
gayety, a glorious shaking up for the quiet 
little village. It comes only once a year, but 
when it does come no one misses it ; and for 
once, at least, the whole village is happy. 

Such simple, naive enjoyment has a healthy 
charm about it ; and the peasants do so 
heartily and seriously enjoy themselves; 
they fairly beam. True, they help their en 
thusiasm by frequent visits across the street, 
returning so much the livelier. 

Round and round goes the glittering, tinsel- 
covered merry-go-round with its gorgeous 
decorations, carrying its noisy, happy freight 



io8 



MY VILLAGE 



boisterously along to the extraordinary music 
of its organ. The sweating assistant wipes 
his brow, but still furiously grinds. 

Snap ! snap ! the crack of the rifles in the 
shooting-gallery, while the busy crowd rest 
lessly moves to and fro among the booths. 
The itinerate pedlers lustily call their wares. 

The pin-wheel man 
strides about, carry 
ing his goods above 
him on an immense 
and picturesque 
straw frame. Chil 
dren, now joyouslv 
intoxicated, rush 
wildly across from 
game to game. 
Up and down, to and fro, the swings, well 
loaded, sweep through the air ; gay flags 
above seem almost noisy in their bright col 
ors. And every form of sound and motion, 
color and shape, hopelessly and inextricably 
mixed, create a bedlam beyond description, 
but a bedlam of hearty, happy enjoyment. 
Steadily the enthusiasm and excitement 




FETE DE VALOMBRE" 



109 



increases, culminating in the ball at night. 
A great tent-covered shed has been erected, 




a plain plank floor spread, six musicians on 
their platform strike up, and the expectant 
crowd surges towards the entrance. Six 
cents is the price of admission. 



no 



MY VILLAGE 




Soon the hall is densely packed. The girls 
are in new dresses 
for the occasion ; 
their healthy sun 
burned faces and 
\ hands make dark 
spots against the 
light costumes. 
They are stiff and 
awkward, and 
walk uneasily in their brilliant plumage ; but 
they are happy, supremely happy. For this 
they have worked, 
saved money, and 
sewed ; and the 
glory of the new 
dress easily coun 
teracts the feeling 
of insecurity and 
awkwardness. 
Soon they will for 
get that they are 
dressed up, and give 

way heartily to the enjoyment of the dance. 
Both boys and girls take their dancing as 




"FETE DE VALOMBRE" III 

a serious affair, a religious rite; a smile is 
rare. They dance as they work in the 
fields, it is a piece of work to be done; 
and though they evidently enjoy it, they attend 
seriously to work. 

A proud, daring couple has started the 
waltz, and the floor, 
in a moment, is alive 
with heavily turning 
humanity. Cautiously L 
they start, with an 
apparent feeling of f 
consciousness and fear 

of mistake, but soon 

5 

are lost in the general ;._^ 

movement, swinging 

and whirling in hearty enjoyment. 

The music, with a few warning notes, 
ceases. The active manager, drawing a 
rope across the hall, collects from each 
dancer the price of the dance, three cents, 
allowing him, after payment, to pass out, 
an amusingly practical system. 

Again the orchestra attacks its work, and 
the waltz whirls on. In turn comes the 




112 MY VILLAGE 

polka and quadrille, the popular dances. 
Then all are upon the floor, till crowded 
humanity in its endeavor to turn butts against 
and tramples on the toes of its neighbor. 
But no matter how dense, the dance goes on ; 
and the manager busily collects his fares, 
and works like a beaver to do it. 

Around the floor the lookers-on stand 
thick and dense. Graduallv the general 
enthusiasm attacks them, and here and there 
a new couple dashes into the arena. 

Panting, red-faced girls, suffering from 
tightly-laced dresses, and hot from the dance, 
wipe their steaming faces to spring at once 
to their feet on the appearance of a partner 
who gallantly requests the pleasure of a 
dance. There is much of the family dance 
about the ball : every one know r s every one ; 
and their only restraint is that caused by the 
effort of wearing new clothes. Good-natured 
souls ! the idea that how to wear clothes is 
a thing; of itself, not picked up suddenly for 
the occasion, has never entered their heads 
fortunately, for otherwise they would know 
that others remarked their awkwardness, and 
be unhappv in the knowledge. 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 113 

Boldly and joyfully they pound the floor. 
The noise rumbles afar over Valombre ; from 
any distance you can hear it rising above the 
orchestra s racket. While outside the merry- 
go-round, with redoubled energy, tries to 




compete with the ball ; and its organ, as 
though inspired by the necessity of the oc 
casion, shrieks above the din of the dance, 
drowning the dancers fiddlers. Hut the 
conflicting music is beneath the notice of the 
happy, perspiring couples ; and they hop and 
swing to whichever music pleases them best 



MY VILLAGE 



some to the measure of the merry-go-round 
organ, while others, by a great effort, remain 
faithful to their own feeble musicians. 




Rushing they go, galoping across the hall. 
Here their great physical strength comes into 
play. Sturdy lads drag their heavy partners 
after them, bumping against each other, but 
gaylv crushing along through and over every 
difficulty. And on thev awav through 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 115 

the morning, until, from sheer exhaustion, 
they drop off one by one. Tired mothers 
lead away their tired daughters. Towards 
four o clock the fete dies out, the organ 
grunts a last grunt, and tired but happy 
Valombre slowly winds away to its homes. 

All this noise and movement bursting so 
suddenly upon the sleepy village quite turns 
one s head, the contrast with the usual life 
is so great. But, strange to say, the rare 
moments of silence, when the organs stop for 
breath, are even more oppressive. One s 
ears have become keyed up to the terrible 
din, and a stop upsets the whole mental 
machinery. The sudden palpable silence is 
really painful. 

Monday morning the fete rested, start 
ing up with renewed vigor in the afternoon. 
The organ again violently set things in 
motion, and the jolly crowd soon warmed up 
to its work. 

This afternoon was devoted to a variety of 
games, for the young and old. The first in 
the series was for the little girls. An egg 
was placed upon a stone ; a girl, blindfolded, 



Il6 MY VILLAGE 

then tried to break it with one blow of a long 
switch. Advancing till she thought herself 
near enough, she struck wildly, much to the 
amusement of her comrades. Each little girl 
in turn tried her luck, those successful of 
course winning prizes, ribbons, handker 
chiefs, etc. 

Then another game. From a bar was 
suspended a small stone swinging to a string. 
Here the girls, again blindfolded, advanced, 
scissors in hand, endeavoring to cut the 
string. As was to be expected, most of the 
cuts were lost in the air; increasing the good- 
humor and mirth of the lookers-on. 

Next, the boys were given a chance. For 
them a lantern containing a lighted candle was 
attached to a post ; they, standing about 
fifteen feet away, were to put out the light 
by squirting water upon it from a huge 
syringe. Like the girls, they were blind 
folded, first being allowed to take aim with 
the charged syringe. A handkerchief being 
then tied over their eyes, word was given, 
and they let fire. This novel game was a 
great success, as the boys, unable to keep 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 1 17 

their aim and handle the syringe, squirted 
right and left, showering the laughing 
crowd. 

The children were crazy with joy, their 
happy shrieks of laughter ringing out after 
each unlucky attempt. And their parents 
enjoyed the performance almost as much as 
they did ; they could not remain dignified, no 
matter how hard they tried. A grin would 
steal over their burnt, wrinkled faces, cul 
minating in a hearty roar, much like the 
bursting of a bomb. 

The happy little winners were given their 
prizes, and strutted proudly around displaying 
a gaudy handkerchief or a bright new jack- 
knife to their less fortunate companions. But 
everything is so arranged that none shall 
be unhappy ; each is consoled with some 
thing, a package of candy, or a few cents. 

These games over, the merry-go-round is 
again overrun, and enthusiasm kept steadily 
up to high-water mark. 

Here the women were given their turn. 
A plate was hung against a wall ; they, a few 
yards distant, had two shots at it with stones. 



u8 



MY VILLAGE 



Their wild throws, though endangering the 
audience, who scampered nimbly out of line 



r$M f&gt; v -, n ..-n tffi h - 




of fire, a broad one, brought the hilarity 
of the crowd up to a wild pitch ; and the 
saloon-keeper next door 
did a good business. 

Meanwhile the men be 
fore the saloons were play 
ing matches of " e carte " 
and " piquet." The ex 
citement, aided by a free 
use of wine, ran high. 
Down the street, another 
set of men were playing 
an interesting game of 
hand-ball. The prizes for 
these games were rabbits, ducks, and legs 
of mutton ; and as dusk settled down, the 




"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 




successful players could be seen wandering 
homeward, firmly holding a frightened rabbit, 
which made des 
perate attempts at 
escape, or a wildly 
quacking duck, 
while the leg of 
mutton, prettily 
done up in colored 
paper and decorated 
with a rosette, was 
triumphantly car 
ried off for the 
morrow s dinner. 

During all these games, the young ladies 

and little chil 
dren were not 
forgotten : the 

ball-room was 
\ ^\ 
V a;iven up to 

IV O 

\ \( }l ^ \\ them ; and a 
most charmingly 
picturesque party they made. Tiny little 
tots danced in pairs, prancing gayly around, 
encouraged by the fond smiles of their 



I2O 



MY VILLAGE 



\ 



mothers ; looking very prettv in their bright 

little costumes. It is 

/- A / astonishing how many 

ff V&lt; V~ 

\sr-i ,-) ^"v new and really good 
dresses show up at the 
fetes; every one seems 
to rise equal to the event. 
Even the most humble 
gracefully dress up their 
children, and, in a few 

\ I ( J 

bright hours, thoroughly 

reap the reward of their economy and 
energy. 

And thus, this 
bright afternoon, 
everybody found his 
game, or the means J 
to be happy and (/ 
heartily enjoy an / 
out-and-out picnic. / 
V a 1 o m b r e had { (/, 
dropped its cares, \1 , 

and so thoroughly S- 

forgotten them that it seemed for the 
time as though none had ever existed to 




FETE DE VALOMBRE" 



121 



worry the happy, lively assembly of healthy 
humanity. 

The saloons were forced 
to build tables, and place 
benches outside their doors, 
overflowing into the street, 
doing tremendous business. 
But though Valombre was 
steadily acquiring a heavy 
dose of artificial stimulant, 
every one remained per 
fectly good-natured: no 
quarrels or disorders mar 
ring the fete. 

The different venders of knick-knacks ex- 





change notes during the lulls of trade. The 
lemonade-pedler complains to the heavy 



122 MY VILLAGE 

hammer man that business is dull ; while the 
merry-go-round keeper retains a dignified but 
indignant silence as he scowls at the theatre. 
At night again the ball holds forth ; and faith 
ful dancers make the floor shake. But the 
strain is beginning to tell by this time, and 
tired humanity looks on more readily than it 
did last night ; still, what is lacking in 
numbers is made good by the enthusiasm of 
the faithful. 

Outside, the merry-go-round and swings 
still do a good business. I notice a couple 
of harvest hands who have won a lot of 
crockery at the wheel of fortune, crockery 
which has cost them dear. Their wives 
fruitlessly endeavor to drag them away ; but 
no, their blood is up, and as long as the 
money lasts, they will try for more crockery. 
And so it goes. One would think the village 
had gone crazy in its joy, and would never 
stop playing. 

Tuesday. To-day is school " exhibition- 
day," and the distribution of prizes takes 
place. The ball-room has been prettily 
decorated with flags, and arranged for the 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 



123 



occasion. The whole village is present. 
Every one is dignified and expectant ; Va- 
lombre intends to show that even if it has 
been having a hilarious time it knows how 
to behave itself when the occasion requires. 
Great personages are expected ; the district 
prefect, the sum of local 
greatness, is to address the 
audience. 

The mayor, beaming 
with the consciousness of 
his importance, though / ///% 
somewhat intimidated, 
with a few well-meant 
gestures, and fewer and 
more modest remarks, 
opens the ceremony. Then 
the great men speak. They repeat the 
much-used remarks usually proffered through 
out the country world on such occasions. 
The children recite their pieces, and look 
very pretty. The prize-winners come for 
ward ; the invited great man decorates their 
brows with little tinsel wreaths, to imitate 
the laurel, and, loaded with bright books, the 




124 MY VILLAGE 

little ones triumphantly return to their proud 
parents, whose eyes are dim with legitimate 

jy- 

As they pass out into the air, with happy 
faces, wearing their little wreaths, their arms 
loaded with red-and-gilt bound story-books, 
they make a pretty picture. They strut 
about proudly with their loads. " Oh, no ! " 



they want no help, and insist on carrying 
their books, that all may see their glory. 
One little girl insists on riding on the merry- 
go-round with her load of half-a-dozen large 
and heavy books. They are awkward to 
handle, but she holds to them. At last, 
finding them too many to hold while riding, 
she dismounts and balances her load on the 
wooden horse, pretty in her innocent vanity. 
Rosalie s little granddaughter has won a 



FETE DE VALOMBRE" 



125 



tinv prize book; and, as I sit before my door, 
smoking, I ask her to show it to me. Her 
father, at Rosalie s, hard at work eating and 
drinking, hears my request and rushes out to 
show off his child. He makes her stand up 




and recite her piece, which she does just as 
a phonographic doll would do, while he beams 
with pride. I enjoy his enthusiasm, and 
heap compliments upon the child ; and he 
steadily grows happier and happier. To-day 
is a happy one for both parents and children. 
In the evening the interrupted fete again 



126 MY VILLAGE 

takes up the thread. The group about the 
phonograph is always interesting. Every face 
is blankly stupid as the music commences. 
Eyes reach out to listen, ears are not enough. 
Gradually the song has an effect on them ; 
and sudden, jerky, noisy little laughs break 
the stillness. I hear a boy enthusiastically 
tell that it s " immense ; " here he hastens, 
in a blase way, to add that he has already 
heard it three or four times. 

The fan-pedler is sociable, and, seeing 
me smoking, asks in a friendly way for to 
bacco to make a cigarette. I give it, but 
tell him that I have n t any paper with me. 
" Oh, that s all right ; the neighbor has." 
So off he goes to the wheel-of-fortune keeper 
to get his paper. He comes back to talk 
about things in general, keeping an eye out 
for business ; for when he sees a child run 
up to me, he immediately pushes a fan or 
whip into its hand, and I pay. He will get 
on, I see that. 

The saloon-keeper takes advantage of a 
lull in business, and tries to get his share of 
the fete. I see him at the theatre, very near 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 127 

the door, ready in case a rush of business 
should necessitate his leaving. To-morrow 
night his wife will have her turn at the show. 
The fete, after lasting a week, closed with 
a concert for the benefit of the aesthetic sen 
timent of Valombre. " Artists " from Paris, 




as they were advertised, sang and played 
with 2jeat success, receiving generous salvos 
of applause. It must have pleased these 
unrecognized geniuses to be thus appreciated 
at last. 

The fete scheme seems to me to be a capi 
tal system. This one I have just studied 



128 MY VILLAGE 

was admfrably conceived and carried out, in 
a paternal sort of way. The amusements 
and games were so arranged that no one 
was left out. Boys and girls, young men 
and young women, grown men and women, 
even the old people, could take part and 
enjoy it. The whole thing gave the village 
a good, thorough shaking-up, a dose of moral 
physic, loosening its purse-strings, and get 
ting it into the habit of spending money for 
enjoyment, and also teaching it how to enjoy 
life in a modest, healthy way. I really be 
lieve that every country and people would 
be the better for such fetes. Their effect is 
essentially civilizing. They counteract, in a 
good healthy way, the natural tendency to 
fall into a narrow, mercenary rut, and make 
people s hearts bigger and happier 

I can see no bad sides to the affair, and 
many good. Here the girls and boys learn 
to dress better, and acquire politer manners. 
They come in contact with Parisians, and 
absorb, though in slight doses, a little much- 
needed polish and softening off of their hard 
points. The genial and gentle in nature is 



"FETE DE VALOMBRE" 



129 



encouraged. The ambition of the young 
men and girls is aroused, and, in endeavoring 
to become more civilized, they make an 
advance. The fete just lasts long enough to 
do good without upsetting the solidity of the 
peasant life. A certain amount of surplus 
money finds its way out of " stockings " 
into circulation. The children benefit by 
the mild rivalry in pride of their parents ; 
and a little more light is let into their lives, 
consequently a little more civilization. 



. 

FETE 





ALBERT S ACCIDENT 

I HAD known him well, a sturdy Hercules 
whose vigorous strength I had so often ad 
mired when in harvest-time he swung his 
broad-bladed scythe in sweeping, resistless 
strokes. He seemed to me the personifica 
tion of health and strength, and now to see 
him so changed quite upset me. I could not 
believe my eyes. Pale and weak, he was sit 
ting in a hay-cart driven by his wife, a pair 
of crutches beside him. " Man Dieu ! Al- 



ALBERT S ACCIDENT 131 

bert, what s the matter ? " I asked, advanc 
ing to the cart, which now slowed up. 

He told me that he was just getting back 
from the hospital at Pontoise, where he had 
been lying for two months with a broken 
leg. It appeared that while watching a tree 
being cut down, it split, and fell unexpectedly, 
and he was unfortunate enough to be caught 
beneath it, getting terribly crushed ; having 
his leg broken in three places. Poor fellow ! 
it seemed a terrible pity that he, so strong, 
should be thus suddenly crippled. At the 
best, he will always limp, even should he 
regain his strength. 

Slowly, through the winter, he picked up, 
and walked about with a cane, glad to have 
got free from his crutches. As spring came 
on, he went out again to work in the fields. 
A wife and four children were behind him to 
be supported. But the joy and cheerfulness 
seemed to have been crushed out of him in 
that one terrible blow, and though he bravely 
did his day s work, he had lost his spirit with 
his strength, and had aged terribly. 

When last I saw him, he was looking for- 



132 MY VILLAGE 

ward to the harvest. Reaping was his pas 
sion, and he yearned to swing his scythe 
through the ripe grain again. His leg, he 
said, was n t good for much, but he counted 
on making the other do all the work. 

" Who is dead now ? " I asked Jean Paul, 
as I heard the church bell ringing. " It s 
Albert," Jean Paul informed me. " What ! 
Albert Missonier ! it is n t possible." " Oh, 
yes, it is ! he died this morning." Poor Al 
bert ! " Yes," Jean Paul added, u he came 
home from harvesting, and, while standing at 
his door talking to his wife, fell dead." Poor 
fellow ! he had killed himself by overwork in 
the hot sun. And now what will become of 
his wife with her four small children ? 




THE POSTMAN 

THK local postman has recently installed 
himself in our court, at the foot of the street. 
Street is rather too dignified a name for our 
little road ; but in the country one must sus 
tain the dignity of his quarter, so street it 
shall be. 



134 MY VILLAGE 

He has hired a little damp room on the 
ground-floor where when the heavy rains fall 
his place is inundated ; and while I write it 
is still damp from the last flood. Here he 
keeps bachelor s hall ; poor fellow, it is a 
hard place for him, suffering as he does from 
lung trouble. 

In his little room, about the size of a prison- 
cell, he has installed his bed, stove, and table. 
When he makes a fire to cook his meals the 
room becomes so hot that he cannot sleep at 
night, so he tells me, and often has to leave 
the door open, waking in the morning shiver 
ing from the cold air. 

I tried to induce him to put his bed up 
stairs ; but he claimed that the loft was not 
even fit to sleep in. He finally compromised 
by getting another room in the village in 
which to sleep, retaining this for his kitchen. 
His place looks picturesque, but terribly bar 
ren ; a tiny stove occupies one corner, the 
table another, a door into the cellar and the 
street-door the others. A few small stew- 
pans are hung in line above the stove, a 
couple of big pots on the floor below ; a big 



THE POSTMAN 135 

pair of top boots for bad weather, a pair of 
heavy brogans, and two chairs complete his 
furnishings. 

As I came in, he was sitting at his table 
eating beneath his lamp, looking for all the 
world like a prisoner in his cell. His work 
is hard ; twice a day he delivers the letters 
of Valombre, walking about thirty kilo 
metres, nearly twenty-one miles, zigzagging 
into houses, up lanes, waiting at gates, etc., 
and for this he is paid but twelve dollars a 
month. Light wages for heavy work ! True, 
New Year s day helps him out a great deal, 
as doubtless he gets several hundred francs in 
tips, some forty or fifty dollars. 

He tells me that there is a great difference 
in the generosity of his different clients, as 
he put it ; some giving him as much as a 
louis, while others offer but a franc, and even 
as low as half a franc, the peasants being 
generally pretty close. " True," he adds, 
u they don t receive many letters." 

When collecting his New Year s tips, his 
plan is to offer to each of the persons to 
whom he carries letters a small calendar, 



136 MY VILLAGE 

this is his present ; the recipient, of course, 
cannot accept without giving : thus he re 
ceives his present in return, though he 
claims that some have given him less than 
the calendar cost him ; fortunately such 
cases are quite exceptional. 

It is strange how many people have the 
mania for government positions, of no matter 
how slight importance. Here, for instance, 
is this man, a native of the south of France, 
bitten by this idea to the extent of giving 
up his work as quarryman, and leaving his 
home to come here among strangers to carry 
letters for twelve dollars a month. After 
twenty-five years of service, to be sure, he 
will be retired on half-pay ; and this must 
be the great attraction, a pension, however 
small. 

He seems a good, honest, quiet soul. I 
tell him he should get married ; he asks me 
how he is to do it on his salary. This rather 
checkmates me ; though I suppose it is still 
possible even on such an income. Long, 
lank, awkward fellow, I fear the girls do 
not run after him ; still every one seems to 



THE POSTMAN 137 

find some one to like him, and doubtless he 
will eventually find his mate. 

He offers me a pipe of tobacco while 1 
am reflecting on this subject, then frankly 
and innocently puts me out by suddenly say 
ing, u Now I must go off to bed before they 
lock me out." So I bid him good-night, and 
off he goes into the darkness, dragging his 
tired legs awkwardly after him. 

His hobby is carpentering and handling 
tools ; this is his dissipation. He has put 
up a well-made work-bench with vise-attach 
ment, and in his spare moments plays with 
wood and plane. He showed me the table 
as a piece of his work, also a chair, straw 
bottom and all, in fact, all his meagre fur 
niture he has made himself. 

Recently he was allowed the privilege of 
cultivating a small side-hill of waste land. I 
found him hard at work ; he had fenced it in 
with bushes and was laboring to clear it of 
weeds, dubiously questioning its success, 
though courageously making the endeavor. 
As his salary is too meagre to support him 



38 



MY VILLAGE 



comfortably, he had to try and raise his own 
vegetables. 

To-night, some weeks later, seeing his 
bent back through the bush fence, I went in 




to see how he was getting along, and to my 
surprise found his garden in quite a flourish 
ing condition ; potatoes were well along, 
salads, cabbage, etc., were also thriving in 



THE POSTMAN 139 

good shape. As I came up, he was busy put 
ting out some celery plants. 

I complimented him on the results of his 
labors, quite admiring his practical energy ; 
for really it required a considerable amount 
thus to "work" a garden after having 
tramped twenty miles during the day. Well 
done, postman ! you well represent the ster 
ling, sturdy qualities of your race, and deserve 
success. 




A SMALL green poster hanging in the hotel 
window announced that " Conrad, the presti- 
digitateur," would perform world-renowned 
feats of magic. To kill a long winter even 
ing, I stepped down to see the performance. 
A couple of old men, with half-a-dozen boys, 
represented the audience. The magician 
was disconsolately walking up and down, 
apparently discouraged by the lack of interest 
shown by the villagers. To help matters I 



THE PRESTIDIGITATEUR 141 

mustered up three friends, our entrance in 

a bodv giving things 

quite the air ot prom- L- 

ise. A few old women p/,? j &lt; v \ 

on errands joined the rK~~K \I\V\ 

\\ \v\ V- 

party ; several girls ^,\, ;\ &lt;\\ \\ 

timidly looked in at / 
the door ; the visitor 
invited them to come 
in, and, apparently ,. , 
accepting this small 
showing as his audience, began his perform 
ance. 

His tricks were quite 
neatly done ; and gradu- 
ally he won his audience. 
- . Perfectly at home, he 
-i; cleverly talked them into 




sympathy, in a bright 
bree/,y manner, his 
tongue being quite as in 
teresting as his hands. 

By the familiar tricks 
of drawing eggs, cards, 
etc., from the ears and clothing of the town- 



142 



MY VILLAGE 



crier and carpenter s apprentice, he put his 
listeners into good-humor. Much bright 
talking, with a little performing, quickly 
passed a long evening. To my surprise, he 
showed no signs of taking up a collection, and 
I wondered how he intended making it pay, 
quite sympathizing with him for his absence 
of luck. But he had had similar experiences, 
and was equal to the occasion. He had 




started by presenting to each of his audience 
a tiny tricolor, ostensibly made before our 
eyes. Now, at the close of his performance, 
he announced that he would hold a lottery, 
offering as prizes a few pewter trinkets, 
drinking-glass, knives and forks, watch-chain, 
etc., of course all highly burnished to tempt 
the eye. " Pure silver," he called them. 

Each person was expected to take three 
numbers, the price for the three being ten 



THE PRESTIDIGITATEUR 143 

cents ; this, he explained, was the way by 
which he expected to make it pay, or rather, 
tor he had no hopes of making it pay, he 
hoped at best to be able to cover his ex 
penses ; to me his case appeared quite hope 
less. But, by his cleverness, he not only 
sold each one three numbers, but then skilfully 
auctioned oft those ^,-^T 
remaining; and they Hr.^ 
were a legion. \ ^ 

First they were 
knocked down at 
nine tor ten cents ; 
then twelve for the 
same price ; and 
so on, down, down, till twenty went for 
two cents. Whenever the enthusiasm of his 
audience flagged, he aroused it again by pro 
ducing a heap of tickets from a boy s nose, 
much to the latter s surprise, and consequent 
delight of the others. Thus he kept the sale 
going, and by his untiring energy succeeded in 
disposing of a fabulous heap ot paper possi 
bilities, managing, considering the small 
audience he had to deal with, really to reap 




144 MY VILLAGE 

quite a respectable harvest of big sous. In 
fact, it seemed as though he stopped only 
when he thought that he had cleared every 
pocket of every sou ; and it looked to me as 
though this were the onlv thing which could 
stop him, as long as there was any money 
in the room he was sure eventually to get it. 

One young lout, whom he had jocularly, 
and with much success, alluded to as " gigot " 
(leg of mutton), being induced to buy a 
goodly number of tickets, and, failing to 
draw, the performer ofFered a surprise to the 
audience, and announced that it should go to 
" gigot," as a consolation prize. " Gigot " was 
quite embarrassed by this mark of sympathy, 
so publicly expressed, and clumsily came 
forward to receive it ; a glass of wine was 
the reward. As they stood and drank 
together, the contrast of the two types was 
picturesquely striking. Beside the great over 
grown boy, in cap and blouse, awkwardly 
dragging his legs after him, the bright presti- 
digitateur, in his black evening dress, care 
fully twisted mustache, keen eye, and alert, 
sprightly air, showed to advantage. The 



THE PRES TIDIGITATEUR 145 

one, all wit and cleverness, earning his pre 
carious living by his skill in play and word, 
scarcely knowing to-day where he would 
sleep to-morrow, and, so accustomed to this 
state of things, scarcely caring ; the other, 
all brute strength, his wit conspicuous by 
its absence, heavy and clumsy, laboriously- 
working to earn his daily bread in a slower, 
surer way, without the slightest germ of 
Bohemianism, even appalled by the idea of 
any change from his regular routine of life 
and work, sure of his home, and happy, 
in a negative way, to know it was firmly 
anchored in one place. 





TRAGEDY 

" ARE you going to the interment to-mor 
row ? " asked Fran9ois, as he came in from 
the harvest, a sheaf of rye balanced across his 
shoulders. " Whose interment ? " " Pere 
Romarus s; you knew him, Constant s 
father, Constant who lives up the valley. 



TRAGEDY 147 

Then you have n t heard about it. Why, 
he fell dead this morning; it happens con 
veniently for his son, as he was to be sold 
out for debt ; now he 11 inherit, and be able 
to fix things. An ill wind that blows nobody 
good." 

This sudden death, while the fete was in 
full blast, seemed painfully out of place. I 
asked for the details. Francois could n t give 
me many : the old man had been greatly 
worried about his son s trouble ; he wanted to 
come to the rescue, but his wife objected. 
Constant had always been his favorite child, 
a spoiled one, the neighbors said ; probably 
the intense heat then prevailing had also been 
a factor of some importance in his abrupt 
collapse. My neighbors, with the native 
peasant cautiousness, declined to commit 
themselves by giving any opinion on the 
subject. 

The following morning I saw Rosalie 
dressed up, on her way to the funeral. Rosalie 
attends them all now that she has anew bonnet 
and jacket. "So you re off to the burial," 
I remarked. u Yes, and to-morrow we 11 



148 MY VILLAGE 

have another," she answered. " Pere Ro- 
marus s wife drowned herself this morn 
ing." Here was startling news for quiet 
Valombre, where suicide had been quite un 
known ; to me it was incredible. 

It appeared that the old woman was terribly 
affected by her husband s sudden death, and, 
so the now communicative natives said, in 
addition dreaded the prospect of living with 
her children, who never agreed. Whatever 
may have been her reasons, about three 
o clock that morning, after sitting up with her 
children and near relations, " watching " the 
dead, she got up quietly and left them. They, 
thinking that she had gone downstairs to lie 
down and rest, paid but little attention to her 
departure ; but at last becoming uneasv, as 
she did not return, they went down to see 
how she was faring. She was not to be 
found. After fruitless efforts, the fear over 
came them that something had happened, 
and, as soon as daylight allowed them to, 
they began a search for her. Instinctively 
they went to the river. 

The broken-hearted old woman had spread 



TRAGEDY 149 

her apron upon the bank, that they might 
know what had happened, and had then 
thrown herself into the stream. They found 
her lying among the rushes just below the 
bank ; she was scarcely submerged. It was 
evident that she meant to die, as where she 
had fallen the water was only deep enough 
to drown one really determined on suicide. 

Such a tragic death was terribly appalling 
to Valombre s calm, and produced quite an 
impression. Fortunately the noise and life 
of the fete were strong enough to counteract 
the chill the gloomy event cast over the 
village. Rosalie s matter-of-fact comment on 
the affair, to the effect that " now she s at 
rest anyway," was the general expression of 
the village s opinion. The peasants may think 
a lot about such events, but as they are little 
given to expressing their opinions on such 
delicate subjects, though I now know them 
so well, I shall doubtless rarely hear the 
double tragedy mentioned. It has already 
become a thing of the past ; the victims and 
the event are together buried in the grave 
that ends their story. 




CELESTINE AND CARVOL 

C^LESTINE has been down sick with the 
" g r PP e " The poor old woman nearly 
" passed," to use the vernacular of the 
village, stubbornly refusing a doctor. This 
was prejudice and avarice. It was useless 
to have him, she said : " It costs, and does n t 
do any good " quite in harmony with the 
peasants philosophy in such cases. " If one 
gets well, that proves that he did n t need a 



CfiLESTINE AND CARVOL 




doctor ; if he dies, it shows that death was in 

him ; and everybody 

knows that, once one 

is to die, nothing will 

avail, the signs of 

the cross no more 

than medicine." 
Finally she became 

able to crawl out of 

doors, bitterly com 
plaining of her luck. 

She tells me that she has had two sicknesses 

in her life, typhoid 
fever and this. 
" Ah " she adds, 
" there are families 
that are afflicted," 
Achille happen 
ing to be sick at 
the same time, 
then his wife in 
her turn. 

I fixed up her 
grapevine for her, 

as she could not bear to see the branches 




152 



MY VILLAGE 



hanging. Her garden is her despair; the 
weeds are pushing up among the vegetables. 
She looks sadly on, but is not strong enough 
to clear them out. This makes life hard to 
bear. To till the earth 
has become the one 
great passion, and Ce - 
lestine will die in har 
ness. To know that 
she is spending and not 
earning, is a hard blow 
for her. 

A week of sunny 
weather gave her 
strength enough to get 
out to work again, and 
she busily sweeps away 
the slight rubbish which 
has accumulated before 
her door, gives the vine its proper trimming, 
and once more has things in working order. 
To-dav she smilingly told me the signs were 
good for a fine week. " Our ancestors," 
she said, " claimed that once you saw the sun 
before 1 eau benite [Sunday], a good week 




CfiLESTINE AND CARVOL 



J 53 



of sunny weather would surely follow." An 
hour later the clouds came piling up, bringing 
rain, and to spare. Celestine, gossiping with 
another old woman, laughingly stops me to 
remark that " apparently our ancestors did n t 
know any more about the weather than 
we do." 

While still talk 
ing, Carvol and 
Jean Paul come up, 
decidedly under the 
influence of liquor. 
They join in the 

conversation. The /I 

&lt;^ 

subject drifts into 
metaphysics. Car- 
vol laboriously expresses the idea that he be 
lieves nothing. Ce"lestine takes him up, and 
tritely asks him who made man. He gathers 
himself together, and wrestles with the prob 
lem. A fearful jumble of Adam and Eve is 
the result. Celestine again springs to the 
attack. " But before that, then ? " " Ah, 
that ! " he drunkenly responds ; " a monkey 
made man." And he chuckles at his own 
cleverness. 




154 MY VILLAGE 

Cdlestine is indignant, and forbids him 
talking in that way. " I am older than you, 
and therefore know more," she says. " Ah, 
after all, I don t know anything about it," 
Carvol stammers. " But who made the 
sun r " cries Ce lestine, practical old sun-wor 
shipper. " That is what we must worship ; 
it makes the fields produce. Man was n t 
smart enough to make that, so there ! " 

Poor Carvol is floored. He helplessly 
turns to me and appeals, " When you make 
a fine picture, and it brings you success, 
it s for your work, is n t it ? You don t 
need to pray to the Bon Dieu, do you ? 
Then, after all, it s your own work that 
counts, is n t it ? " I agree with him, and he 
feels happier. " I have drunk a drop," he 
apologetically adds ; " but there s no harm in 
that, is there ? " But Rosalie has suddenly 
caught sight of him, and furiously shouts : 
u Come here, you drunkard ; you re at it 
again, you brute ! Carvol sullenly bows his 
head, and staggers on to the warm reception 
awaiting him. 

As he had referred to Eve s eating the for- 



CELESTINE AND CARVOL 155 



bidden fruit, and thus bringing trouble into the 
world, Ce lestine sadly observes, " But the wo 
men have paid for it since ; " adding, 
"they have more trouble than men ; " 
then, as an afterthought, "but they 
are smarter also." 

The butcher s pea 
cock, perched upon 
Celestine s chimney, 
disturbed by the un 
wonted discussion 
beneath him, here 
sets up a discordant 
screech. " Ah, you 
vagabond ! " cries 
Celestine, " you 
mock at me, do 
you ? " and threatens 
him with a terrible 
death. The bird, 
scorning her 
futile wrath, 
quietlv ar- 

ranges himself for a comfortable nap. 
peace again settles over our court. 





THE PEASANT 

How differently one sees the same thing 
at different times, according to the mood, 
the mental vision quite governing the physical. 

When in good spirits, I find the peasants 
and their life quite ideal, healthy, vigorous, 
and free. Even the visible labor is agreeable 



THE PEASANT 157 

to look on. It seems not too heavy, but 
more like some purely religious function. On 
the other hand, when depressed and worried, 
in every other face I see the lines of pain, 
the scars left by the battles of" life. 

How can one judge fairly of what one 
sees ? The mind and mood are the mirror 
that form the vision, the eyes being but a 
lesser part of the observing machinery. 

At times all seems clean and thrifty. I 
would have nothing changed, in the best 
of possible worlds. The peasant looks digni 
fied and big, the equal of any. At other 
times, as often, when returning from Paris, 
he impresses me as terribly gross and unciv 
ilized, a sordid beast of burden. And his 
social, moral, and intellectual inferiority is 
painfully evident. 

I wish to be just, and give a true impres 
sion of the life about me, but find it difficult 
when thus I receive such different impres 
sions. It is not easy to give a fair account of 
anything, alas ! When critical, one easily is 
unjust ; when wishing to be conscientious, one 
becomes lenient, and errs on the other side. 



158 MY VILLAGE 

The peasant is a peculiar product of cen 
turies of servility, hardship, and perpetually 
protracted hard labor, an agglomeration of 
the vices and virtues of such a regimen. 
His servility is often that of a dangerous dog 
who is submissive before his master, while 
his natural instincts growl. Yet, in other 
cases, this subordination to a superior class has 
developed into a sincere faithfulness, even if 
resembling that of the horse. Thus, during 
the Revolution, while many were like the 
wildest and most bloodthirsty beasts, slaking 
their vengeance to their heart s desire, others 
remained faithful and sacrificing till death to 
their old masters. 

The peasant of to-day, taking him as a 
class, combines, or is rather the medium be 
tween, these two extremes. His servility has 
become independence, while a greater liberty 
has softened his brutishness. Still, occasion 
ally, the old stock is visible, through its 
general workings, in this generation. 

Frugal and industrious he is, and evidently 
always has been. Education and cleanliness 
he has taken to, though he did so reluctantly 



THE PEASANT 



59 



at first. Through his dense brain the light 
has at last penetrated, almost by force. The 
practical advantages of a knowledge of read 
ing, writing, and arithmetic have ultimately 
made him tractable in this direction. But 




cleanliness, for cleanliness sake, he takes to 
less kindly. 

His energy is indefatigable. No day is 
too long for him. Both girls and boys com 
mence work in the fields at an early age, and 
generally end a long life performing exactly 
the same routine, year after year, planting 
and harvesting, till, from force of habit, their 
backs gradually acquire a perpetual stoop. It 



i6o 



MY VILLAGE 



is the brand of their work, distinct and apart 
from all others. No matter how you might 
disguise these veterans, they would be recog 
nized at once as tillers of the soil. So long 
and intimately are they wedded to the brown 
earth that their skin acquires the color, baked 
in by the sun, and their old faces and 




hands are furrowed as deeply as their fields. 
Old veterans of eighty and upwards are still 
found in the ranks of active service. They 
prefer to die in harness rather than to join 
the hospital "corps." Their work has be 
come their only pleasure. Stop them, and 
they would pine away and die. 

Though the peasant has few diversions, 
his life seems a happy one. He is more in- 



THE PEASANT 161 

dependent than the city laborer, and stronger 
and healthier on account of his work and 
regular life. He is well-to-do ; or if not, it 
is generally his fault. He lives well, and 
according to his tastes, very plainly though 
it be. 

Here the peasant-proprietor scheme can 
be judged by its workings. The results of 
the system impress one as being in everyway 
a great success. The peasant, owning his 
house and land, has every interest to keep 
both in good condition. His ambition is 
encouraged by the feeling that the making 
of his fortune is directly in his own hands. 
Paris has to be fed. All he can raise finds 
a ready sale. Every improvement he adds 
to his land adds to the amount of his pro 
duce, consequently to his income. This cer 
tainty of a ready market, and the knowledge 
that the gain is his, and his alone, that he is 
working directly for himself, are a source of 
steady encouragement. The result is agree 
ably apparent in a prosperous, wealthy vil 
lage of well-kept houses, and rich, productive 

farms. 

ii 



162 



MY VILLAGE 



Each man, owning a farm of limited extent, 
is freed from the care of speculation on a dan 
gerous scale. He needs but a small number 
of hands. In fact, most lands are worked by 
the owner himself, with his wife and family, 
so that the outlay is slight, and the profit 
relatively great. By this system the peasant 




steadily gains ground, little by little, but reg 
ularly and surely, accumulating a comfortable 
pittance. 

Poverty ceases to exist, with its terrible 
corollary of vexations, vexations which de 
stroy good-humor, and make their victim de 
spondent and vicious. His knowledge of 
being able to meet his taxes, live well, com- 



THE PEASANT 163 

fortably clothe and educate his children, de 
velops a genial good-nature and cheerful 
spirits, and he helps to form a class healthy 
both in mind and in body. In this condition 
the peasant is law-abiding and orderly. Aside 
from the natural sentiment which a success 
ful life generates, he is a property-owner, and 
knows that the safety of his property de 
pends on law and order. Thus is generally 
developed a solid, law-abiding community, 
wealthy, healthy, and contented. 

The deliberate creation of this state of 
society carries with it a solid sentiment of 
balance, of equilibrium. Rash speculation 
has no temptations for a happy people. 
Their tastes also grow slowly, and in har 
mony with their fortunes. They rarely 
endeavor to make a false show by living 
beyond their means. Progress, that terrible 
bugbear, affects them slowly; they take it in 
mild doses. While the city clerk or work 
man endeavors to jump from his class to 
that of his superiors, or to that more solidly 
established on a financial basis, causing him 
endless struggles and worries to make both 



164 MY VILLAGE 

ends meet while living in this false state, 
the peasant lags behind, and comes along 
more slowly and solidly, feeling cautiously 
his steps. 

While the one lives a lite of false show 
without a solid basis, uneasy, worried, un 
happy, consequently unhealthy, gradually jug 




gling with morality and honesty in his efforts 
to keep his feet on the slippery ground he 
has chosen, a victim to every financial crash, 
undermining, perhaps, society both physically 
and morally ; the other is steadily advanc 
ing with a sure foot, holding easily every step 
he gains. Happy and free from unnatural 
care, his children are stronger and healthier. 
He represents a social stratum which no mo- 



THE PEASANT 



165 



mentary business-panic can affect, a solid 
rock of resistance against which Chance can 
do little, capable of sustaining the solidity and 
prosperity of his country through every trial. 




Avarice is the prevailing vice among the 
peasants. They have had such a long, hard 
time to get money that now that they have 
it they keep it. The thing they work so 



i66 



MY VILLAGE 



hard to possess now seems inclined to pos 
sess them, body and soul. But yet, after all, 
the peasant is not the only one whose creed 
is money. Economy becomes almost a tine 
art in their hands. Many take advantage of 







- 



neighboring fairs to replenish their wardrobe 
with second-hand clothing. Their love of 
bargaining is strong ; and the Jew pedler, 
though he does business, meets his match. 

The natives of Valombre patch easily and 
frequently. Clothes must needs be in a 
pretty hopeless state when skilful patching 



THE PEASANT 167 

cannot save them. The same stuff is, in 
preference, used, though this is not absolutely 
necessary. As a consequence, the results 
attained are often quite wonderful. Some 
distance off, you see a man wearing white 
trousers. You are surprised to notice that 
half of the left leg is black, making a 
clearly-cut division where it joins the rest. 
On his approach, you discover that it is 
simply a patch of the original goods, but 
the rest has had time to change color. 
These patches are neat, the peasant never 
being ragged ; but they are really extraor 
dinary, ranging often from head to foot. 

The peasant is generally very sober. The 
drunkenness of the village is confined to a 
few, and is represented by the tradesmen, 
or more usually the masons or stone-cutters. 
And I notice that the drunkards furiously 
talk politics and schemes for social reform, 
etc. Whether it is the politics which make 
them drink, or the drink which makes them 
politicians, I cannot say, but the two seem 
invariably to go together. 

Sunday is quite generally kept by the peas- 



I 68 MY VILLAGE 

ants. Habit has firmly sanctioned its being 
a day of rest. From the religious point of 
view it also still holds to quite an extent, 
notwithstanding that the general, modern 

destruction of his old supersti- 

L 
tions has worked its way slowly 

into the peasant s mind, causing 
" him a sort of gleeful, crafty sat 
isfaction at being freed from the 
fear of the deity, to him much 
like a mighty gendarme, to be 
appeased by humility. He still 
keeps up a certain relation with 
the church on the general, cautiously sus 
picious principle that he 11 keep on the safe 
side until he is sure that there is no longer 
any danger. Thus he pays a superficial re 
spect to the feared power. The women nat 
urally cling to the church more firmly than 
the men, though their religion seems to be 
a more direct fear and worship of the priest 
than of a divinity. 

Distractions are few. The life is purely 
physical. After a long day s work, the men 
sit outside their doors to smoke and chat, 




THE PEASANT 



169 



going to bed soon after darkness has settled 
down. And the rising moon looks blankly 
at silent, empty streets, except where, here or 
there, an old woman is returning from an all- 
day visit, or a dissipated cat is waiting for its 
mate, to serenade the sleeping village. 





THE "CANTONNIER" 

PIERRE, the old " cantonnier," road- 
mender, had "passed." He had made a 
hard fight, hanging for six weeks on the 
verge of the grave. His son and wife derived 
considerable satisfaction from this evidence of 
the old man s toughness. "Isn t he solid?" 
Louis would say, and this each day as the 
end grew nearer, as though proud of the record 
of such resisting powers. 

The old man himself claimed that the 
" box " was strong, alluding to his body, though 



THE "CANTONNIER" IJl 

the machinery was a little out of order. He 
died as much from despair at not being able 
to get out to work, as from his pneumonia 
and old age. 

Once the peasant is on his back, his end is 
approaching. For sixty years he will work 
in the sun and the rain, growing as tough and 
gnarled as his trees, and the color of the 
earth he loves, his mistress ; but whenever 
sickness does strike him down, his collapse is 
complete. The poor old machine has worked 
until all the parts, exhausted, give way at once; 
the end of endurance has been reached. 

Yet though he feels that his time is over, 
he fights rebelliously ; he will not give up his 
fields just as they are ready for the harvest. 
And each day, as his son and neighbors go off 
to their work, another nail is driven into his 
coffin, and he hears and feels it keenly. 

Left alone, for all hands are needed to get 
in the ripe grain, he pines away like a used- 
up animal which has lain down in the corner 
of a field to die. The harvesters on their 
return from work find him motionless, with 
closed eves. " Is he dead ? " No, not yet ; 



I 72 MY VILLAGE 

he feebly opens his tired eyes, which still hold 
a faint, plaintive intelligence. 

41 How solid he is ! " they say. " You are 
tough, old man," some one yells into his ear. 
He takes no interest. The next day at noon 
they find him dead, the old woman left to 
watch him sound asleep. 

Preparations are quickly made for the 
funeral. But the work in the fields goes on 
just the same. " Because the old man is 
dead, it s no reason why the grain should be 
allowed to spoil when it is ripe." Neverthe 
less a day is lost when he is carried to the 
cemetery above the church. As Valombre 
seems to be almost one big family, every one 
being related to every one else, the relatives 
form quite a good-sized crowd to follow the 
coffin. After services at the church, the pro 
cession starts off across the plain, to the 
cemetery. The priest with his acolytes lead- 
ino; the wav, the men follow the hearse, the 

o . 

women coming after. 

I notice that in all these funerals the men 
always take first place, as a body, the wo 
men being relegated to the rear. Arrived at 



THE "CANTONNIER 



the graveyard, the coffin is soon lowered into 
the grave. The priest dexterously and quickly 



Monsieur Jean Pierre ROMARU 



[&gt;e Ij pjiUe MiJ.ime Veuve ROMARU, sa be] 



ROMARl, - peiiitenhnts. Midame Veuve HtA. bcl 
MonMeui et .Mjdjn.e BARD. &gt;es beau-Wre el belle-sdur. Mo 



AL STEK. Meiilemoiiclln Helene. Emii.e cl am, lie BAKD. 



i LECOM I E. scs pen 



Priez pour Lui ! 



performs his rites, and scampers off. The 
mourners in turn file by the open grave, 



174 MY VILLAGE 

sprinkling the coffin with holy water, then 
winding out by the near relatives, the chief 
mourners, members of the family, who stand 
on either side of the gate to receive the 
proffered condolences, which mainly consist 
in a sympathetic shake of the hand, the 
peasant being little given to words. 

As the procession marched up over the 
bright plain, it looked like a great black ser 
pent, winding along the white road through 
the stacks of yellow wheat. Black, black, 
terribly black, every one wearing this color; 
and the result is a most sombre mass, as seen 
from a little distance, of something lugu 
briously weird, irresistibly moving on towards 
the lonely-looking graveyard perched on the 
crest of the plain. 

In the cemetery every one, on account of 
his innumerable relations, has some dead ; 
and the women take advantage of this favor 
able occasion, where they can be seen, to say 
a prayer over the graves. An ominous still 
ness reigns; every one is anxious to appear 
dignified, and, as a result, no one dares make 
a remark. The effect of this reticence is 



THE " CANTONNIER " I "5 

quite startling upon the women ; tears are 
easily shed by those who on coming in felt 
perfectly calm about the affair. Even the pea- 
santwoman has nerves, a woman, after all. 

And now, the funeral over, the family must 
show its appreciation of the friends invited. 
Wine is brought out ; a good dinner served ; 
and the mourners, after a few fitting praises 
of the departed, gradually come back to the 
living, and talk crops, sales, births, marriages, 
etc., even telling amusing stories, as the wine 
slowly counteracts the death gloom. Really, 
a funeral properly conducted is not so dull. 

After lunch the men stroll from saloon to 
saloon, steadily growing more boisterous ; 
and, to judge from appearances, an hour after 
the interment one would need to be pretty 
sharp to distinguish between the close of a 
funeral service and that of a wedding. The 
women, while the men are drinking, pay 
visits, and gossip long and furiously before 
their respective doors, occasionally shedding 
a contrite tear by moments, if the dead 
happens to be a relation. It looks well and 
shows affection. 



i 7 6 



MY VILLAGE 



Yes, the peasant has many of the affecta 
tions of his better-educated brothers, or rather 
sisters, the man being generally too dull to 
affect. When he thinks he should look sym 
pathetic, he simply savs nothing and looks 




stupid. When enthusiasm overpowers him, 
and he feels an idea germinating in his brain, 
he says, " Norn de nom, let s drink some 
thing ! His less intellectual friends hail 
this suggestion as a really new and brilliant 
idea. Should no one think of this, thev 
might stand for hours looking up and down 



THE "CANTONNIER" 177 

the street, exchanging an occasional remark 
about once in ten minutes. 

The wine makes them garrulous, and, like 
other men, they boast, boast about their 
skill in planting or arranging this or that. 
At night, their wives, with lashing though 
weary tongues, drag them home ; and the 
funeral and its fete is over. Now the old 
man has become hopelessly a thing of the 
past. "Hie jacet " Pierre. 




THE HERMIT OE VALOMBRE 

" WHO is that ? " I asked of Celestine, as 
a dilapidated vagrant passed down the path 
where I was working. 

The old woman sprang to the answer at 
once ; it was such a one as the good old 
scandal-monger delights in. " Who is he ? 
What is he ? Goodness : how can I tell you ! " 
In her enthusiasm she could not get a start 
on the subject, attacking the beginning, the 
middle, and the end of her story all at once. 



THE HERMIT OF VALOMBRE 179 

" He was rich, that man you see there ; look 
at him now ! What is he ? He s a vagabond 
who is dying of want, living like a dog in a 
hole in the rock." 

This was becoming interesting, and by a 
credulous " Ah ! " I encouraged her to go on. 
And so on she went, telling me a long, con 
fused tale of his having originally been left 
with three big houses ; a fortune of one 
hundred thousand francs, at the death of his 
father ; and now, to-day, he was a tramp, 
without a sou, " an old man when he s 
only fifty, the age of my Julie," Ce les- 
tine s daughter who - had died thirty years 
ago, but to whom the old woman always 
refers as though she was of yesterday. 

Well, my vagabond had commenced early 
to dissipate, and by reckless living rapidly 
ate up his fortune, his friends and com 
panions helping him heartily ; and, according 
to Celestine, he was robbed right and left ; 
till at last, to try and save the ruins, a 
relation had offered to rent his last house, 
telling him that he could live on the money 
and thus avoid running into complete ruin 



180 MY VILLAGE 

and poverty. But no, he would n t do it, and 
faithfully kept up his wild life, until all was 
gone, and he found himself at last houseless 
and without money, his youth squandered, 
a middle-aged man without prospects. 

He steadily drifted from bad to worse, 
gradually working less and less, till now he 
had become a vagrant, living on charity, his 
home a cave in the rocks. 

The story seemed so extraordinary for 
Valombre, where the peasant is so cool and 
thrifty, little given to folly or improvidence 
of any kind, that my curiosity was aroused ; 
and, after inquiring for and receiving direc 
tions as to where his cave was situated, I 
started off to see more of him. 

After a short search, being clearly directed, 
I discovered him ; and what a home he had ! 
The Indian in the forest lives in palatial style 
by comparison. In a narrow cut in a cleft 
of the rocks, just long enough to allow him to 
stretch out, he had taken up his quarters. 

When, after climbing up to his cave, I 
looked in, he lay stretched supinely on his 
back, his feet crammed in beneath a great 



THE HERMIT OF VALOMBRE l8l 

bowlder which overhung the floor of his 
lodge, while, to accommodate his length, his 
head rested against the opposite rock, his 
neck bent in what to me appeared a most un 
comfortable position. His bed was a litter 
of dirty straw, over which he had spread a 
mattress cover ; doubtless the straw origi 
nally formed a part of the mattress, but 
long use, frequent moving, and the dampness 
had brought about the disintegration of the 
parts. 

A few dishes lay about, confused with a 
heap of small potatoes and as many skins. 
The occupant of this bohemian dwelling, 
surprised by the sudden darkening of his 
cave, slowly rolled over and looked at me 
with one bright eye, the other apparently no 
longer serving its functions, much as a 
cow might do under similar circumstances. 
I presented myself, hoped that I was not 
bothering him, etc., etc. " No," he said, 1 
did n t bother him ; doubtless nothing could 
really bother him, his wonderful inertia being 
proof against the annoyances which count 
for so much with the ordinary mortal. 



I 82 MY VILLAGE 

In response to my questions, he said that 
his place was very comfortable, cool in 
summer and warm in winter. He had 
already passed a year in it ; when the north 
wind blew he never felt it. In winter he 
brought in his stove, and was as warm as 
one could wish to be, etc. 

I asked him if he did n t occasionally 
suffer from ennui. " Oh, no," he had no 
one to interfere with him ; he was master, 
and avoided ennui by never thinking. " No, 
I don t think about anything all day," he 
said. He had simply fallen back to the 
animal state by degrees, and now existed. 
He had attained, without an effort, that 
calm which philosophers so laboriously 
search for. Inertia developed to a high 
pitch had suppressed and taken the place of 
everything else. 

I asked how he came to take up this stvle 
of life, saying that I had heard that he was 
once rich, etc. Yes," he answered, " I had 
a fortune, but I ate it up ; I went in for a 
good time, had it, and the money went. Of 
course I did n t earn the money ; it was left 



THE HERMIT OF VALOMBRK 183 

me, and I spent it, that s all." I remarked 
that it was too bad that he had n t kept some, 
so that he would n t have to live in this way. 
" No," he did n t regret it ; he had had a 
good time and was satisfied. " But," he 
added, " I m not always going to be this 
way ; I spent a fortune, now I m going to 
work to make one. I want to know how 
it s done ; oh, I m going to work." 

" What do you intend doing ? " I interposed. 
" Oh, no matter, I 11 work." Here it was 
evident that his scheme was very vague, and 
doubtless was to be relegated to some distant 
future. " I have time," he added ; " my 
father lived to be eighty-four, so I still have 
about forty years to live ; I 11 last as long as 
he did." As I appeared sceptical, he added, 
" The thing is to marry a rich woman ; that s 
what sets a man up." The magnificence of 
his complacent confidence was too much for 
me, and my hearty laugh pleased him ; it was 
apparently a commendation of his cleverness. 
I suggested that it might be difficult for him 
to meet a rich woman who would be willing 
to marry him, living as he did. He did n t 



184 MY VILLAGE 

agree with me. " The principal thing," he 
said, " is not to miss the opportunity when it 
comes your way ; that s the whole secret of 
the scheme ; and I 11 look out that I don t 
let it slip me," he added sententiously. 

The idea was ludicrously incongruous with 
his vagabond appearance and life ; but he 
did n t see it in that light. " Hope is the 
thing that keeps me up," he said ; u without 
it one could n t live, and I have hope ; I m 
young enough yet." He was fifty, already 
gray haired and bearded. 

I asked him if he was n t afraid that his 
place would cave in some day. " Oh, no," 
it was solid ; though, he added, the other 
night, close beside his hole, the great bowlders 
had crashed down, rumbling and roaring. It 
had somewhat startled him ; but he was too 
inert to be afraid, and lay where he was 
through it all. But to me it looked as 
though some morning the passers-by would 
see a heap of crushed bowlders where was 
now his home ; and that thus he would cease 
to be a part of the world, dead and buried 
at one stroke. 



THE HERMIT OF VALOMBRE 185 

Outside his hole, there being too little 
room within, he had set up his stove ; the 
rain had gradually dilapidated it to a con 
siderable extent ; but it still held together, 
and answered his purposes. The head of a 
bedstead, or rather a part of it, served as door 
to the cave. Broken remains of a table and 
chair littered the rocks behind the stove, 
relics of better days. He had told me, with 
an indicative twist of" the head, that he had 
kept only these. He spoke of them as his 
furniture ; true, I suppose they were, since 
they answered his demands ; but the name 
dignified the crippled litter of odds and ends. 

During all the time I had talked with him 
he remained stretched on his back, his head 
still uncomfortably propped against the 
bowlder which served as pillow. When 
interested, he would roll over a little, but 
soon drifted back to his original posture. 
He had been thus all day, and apparently 
could keep it up indefinitely. He was not in 
the least misanthropic, and even claimed to 
be quite happy and satisfied with the existing 
state of affairs. 



I 86 MY VILLAGE 

There was no mental friction ; the animal 
lived calmly on, probably only moved to 
activity by the demands of the stomach. 
With a reasonable amount of food, and 
should the bowlders not crush him, he may 
very possibly hold out to a good old age. 

Diogenes was ambitious and undertook 
that difficult task of finding an honest man, 
while this disciple suppresses all ambition 
and even the effort of thought, and quietly 
enjoys life in a bovine, negative way. 

Six months later I again visited the her 
mit to see whether he had succeeded in 
pulling though the terrible winter or not. I 
found him apparently none the worse for the 
experience. He even claimed that he had 
been quite comfortable, had not even had a 
fire in his cave to warm him ; doubtless he 
was too lazy to move his stove, and preferred 
to take the risk of freezing. His toughness 
astonished me, as I really had feared to find 
him a thing of the past. 

Now he had just moved from his winter 
quarters, left his cave for a more roomy 



THE HERMIT OF VALOMBRE 187 

dwelling, and, wishing to be cooler, sleeps 
out of doors with only an overhanging 
bowlder to shelter him from the rain. 

I asked him if he never was sick, caught 
cold, etc. " Oh, no," as to catching cold, he 
u had that down fine ; " whenever his nose 
began to run he knew that he was catching 
cold, so immediately lay down and kept his 
feet warm, and the trouble was soon cured. 

He seemed pleased to see me, and proudly 
showed me his garden. He raises all the 
vegetables he needs, and wants little else, 
lazy vagabond ! 

He told me how he could tell the time of 
dav. u You see that ledge ? " " Yes." 
u Well," when the sun touched it, then it 
was eleven o clock ; at another place it was 
one, etc., etc. He had no use for a watch, 
in fact, no use for time, days all being alike 
to him. 



THE FIRE BRIGADE 

OUR tire brigade is a picturesque agglom 
eration of native, volunteer talent. It 
presents a motley appearance of big and little, 
fat and thin, young and old men, peasants, 
masons, and shopkeepers. Quite often they 
practise and drill in the Place de la Maine, 
the public square, on a scaffolding erected for 
this purpose. Nearly every village of any 
size in France has one of these scaffoldings 
for its fire drill, the system being generally 
the same throughout the country. 

The drill, with its awkward movements, 
and the consciousness of importance shown 
by the volunteers, is amusing to see. Everv- 
thing is done with military precision. They 
sweat and work conscientiously, as though 
the salvation of the village depended on their 
efforts, running and jumping at the command 
of their chief. " Take positions ! " they 



THE FIRE BRIGADE 189 

jump into line, every man at once becoming 
an automaton ; then, spasmodicallv following 
the brief orders : " Get out the ladder ! 
Climb the scaffold ! Get out the hose ! " 
now jumping and scrambling with great 
enthusiasm " Lower a cord from above to 
hoist the hose ! Install the pump ! " Here 
a ludicrous confusion delays the working of 
things. The nervous greengrocer has got 
into a tangle. The critical chief, the local 
drv-goods man, in his white blouse, just as 
he left his store, impatiently explains how 
the thing should be done, and a new start is 
made, much to the disgust of the contrite 
grocer. One ! Two ! Three ! " Voila ! " up 
goes the hose the men are rigid as 
dummies. " Ready ! " due deliberation to 
give importance to the command. " Pump ! : 
furiously the pump-handles are banged up 
and down. Another signal the men on 
the scaffold scramble down ; the ladders are 
folded ; the pump is emptied of its imaginary 
water ; it is put back in place ; the basket 
covers, to protect it from dampness, put on ; 
hose rolled up; pump lifted into its wagon; 



1 90 MY VILLAGE 

ladders placed beside it, the men falling 
into rigid, fixed attitudes, military, if you will, 
after each movement, waiting the next word 
of command. A short rest, and the per 
formance commences again, until done to 
the satisfaction of the now irate chief. 

The pump is an old style hand-pump ; 
water must be poured into it with buckets, 
and is then pumped out through the hose. It 
throws a stream perhaps thirty feet. I have 
seen the brigade at a real fire once, once in 
four years. Their work was both picturesque 
and effective, and they did it with a will. 
Absurd as they seem at practice, when at 
work they show to advantage. 

Still, it seems a mockery to see them 
furiously practising at least once a week, 
while a fire visits the village but once in 
four years. They feel that there is no use 
in being firemen, if they can t show them 
selves, and, as disaster presents itself too 
seldom to give them a chance, they must 
play at fire, much like great boys, after 
all. 

At the week-dav drills each appears in his 



THE FIRE BRIGADE 191 

working costume ; but on Sundays or fete 
days they don their old brass helmets, re 
minding one involuntarily of the time of 
Henri IV., broad belts, white breeches, 
and a short blue tunic ; and here they are 
ready to be admired, and the village admir 
ingly looks on. 

The chief, who at ordinary drills appears 
in his blouse, is glorious in a neat military 
uniform, sword at his side, looking quite 
dignified, and feeling so. The brigade has 
its own band, which presents the same 
picturesque appearance as the others, though, 
to do them justice, they play really well for 
country musicians ; they enjoy their work, 
and the village enjoys them. 

For some time the fire brigade has been 
clamoring for a new pump, and at last they 
have succeeded in getting it. Popular 
subscription answered their persistent calls. 
To-day, Sunday, to show the liberal donors 
what their money had produced, they 
decorated the new pump with flags and 
streamers ; and, with drums beating, and 



192 MY VILLAGE 

trumpets blowing in the van, they paraded 
it proudly through every street, the band 
working lustily to attract the subscribers to 
their doors that they might enjoy this 
triumphal march, the whole awkward squad 
of the tire brigade marching gallantly behind, 
with a proud air which seemed to say, u Now 
let the fire come on." 

The following Sunday, they paraded their 
new pump again. Their triumph had been 
so sweet that they wished to taste it once 
more ; and, like so many boys with a new 
toy, the sturdy, innocent louts, looking 
supremely absurd, dragged their little pump 
from one end of the village to the other, 
occasionally resting at the different saloons 
to acquire new energy. 

And now, the brave and ever faithful 
brigade has again taken up its work, and 
drills resignedly before the schoolhouse, 
waiting for the fires which, ungratefully, 
never come to give them a chance to show 
their skill and good will, and their new 
pump at work. Alas ! fate seems to be 



THE FIRE BRIGADE 193 

against them ; their courage is great to work 
thus so patiently, with hope deferred so long. 
Oh, for one good fire to repay them ! they 
deserve it. 

The band has been practising hard for 
several weeks to take part in a general 
musical competition, and last week went 
away to the place of meeting with great 
hopes and enthusiasm, the village accompany 
ing them to the station, their flag proudly 
flying, and music playing its most triumphant 
air. 

But to-day they came quietly back ; the 
flag was furled, and the drum silent. They 
had not even the courage to play their usual 
march when coming home. Luck had been 
against them ; and the poor fellows looked 
very tired and dejected, as though coming 
in contact with the great outer world had 
subdued their vanity. 

Now, in their turn, the firemen are 
practising hard, also going to try their luck 
in a competition ; and every night we have 
them playing with their pump and scaffold. 
And they really are very ludicrous in their 
13 



194 MY VILLAGE 

awkwardness, especially when climbing or 
descending the ladders. Ladders are some 
thing they have little experience of, their 
lives being passed on solid ground ; as a 
result they climb in a most clumsy, cautious 
way, with legs spread apart like frogs. They 
are strong and active, but their feet and 
hands bother them for climbing ; and in 
their enthusiasm they fall over themselves, 
so to speak. Their absurd uniform adds 
an additional feature of grotesqueness to 
their appearance. Allowed to work in their 
own natural way, they would answer well 
enough ; but their attempts to jerk and jump 
to methodical orders is a complete failure. 
Their legs are too clumsy and their joints 
too big and stiff for such mechanical drill. 
When in uniform, they do better than when 
in their blouses, as then their pride is aroused, 
but they look more absurd. If conscientious 
enthusiasm is to count for anything, they 
surely will bring home a prize. 



ROSALIE S DECLINE 

TRUE, Carvol gets drunk, always did and 
doubtless always will ; but Carvol s drunk 
was originally of a good-natured kind, 
clumsy, stupid, and even amusing, yet al 
ways harmless. 

Rosalie herself, though claiming to be dis 
gusted, appeared to enjoy the funny side of 
these regular inebriations, good-naturedly 
stowing him off to sleep in the loft. 

When, how, and where the change began 
I cannot just say ; but eventually Rosalie 
took to blackguarding him with furious 
tongue-lashings, whenever he came home 
full. And he, though at first stolidly ac 
cepting this medicine, gradually retaliated in 
the same tone, sending back a fitting answer 
to every charge, till, little by little, they both 
lost their good-humor and fought steadily, 
whether drunk or sober. 



196 MY VILLAGE 

She at last succeeded in goading him up 
to such a pitch that he occasionally struck 
her ; then in her rage she would go into 
hysterics, and matters kept going from bad 
to worse. Now they lead a miserable life; 
both, originally good-natured, have become 
surly and vicious. 

Who is to blame for this change r Both, 
I think ; for though Carvol gets drunk, 
Rosalie has always been used to it, has 
always earned her own living, and remained 
cheerful, even while she had two children to 
look after. And now that she has only 
herself to care for, Kaiser being again at 
large, she is ever complaining, becoming quite 
an anarchist in her ideas, repeating the tire 
some song of the rich taking their ease, while 
the poor cannot live. This in her case is 
nonsense, though ever so true in a general 
way ; as, since she has always been able to 
live comfortably when she had more to care 
for, there is no reason why she should not be 
able to do it now r . And CarvoFs drunkenness, 
with its necessary waste of money, should 
not count any more than it originally did, as 



ROSALIE S DECLINE 197 

he has always kept up the same pace, always 
working, and always getting drunk. 

I think that one of the great causes of her 
troubles is one that is now quite universal, that 
is, that she is trying to live beyond her means. 
For now she insists on keeping hens, rabbits, 
geese, ducks, and a pig, all of which have to 
be fed, and she must buy their food. 

Naturally she claims and tries to think 
that she is doing it for the pecuniary profit 
to be got from them. But the fact is that 
she has changed the seat of her affections, and 
now, instead of centring it in her family and 
husband, gives it to her pig, and slaves to 
feed him to repletion. True, she is a 
Breton, and the instinct is therefore natural. 
Already she has succeeded in so stuffing the 
brute that he can no longer stand ; but the 
process costs her a good part of what she 
earns. Then, in addition, she has become a 
victim of the instalment plan sales, a system 
which has ruined or made unhappy many 
poor people by tempting them to buy more 
than they can afford, the prospect of easy 
payments being such an irresistible bait. 



198 MY VILLAGE 

She subscribes for an elaborate cooking- 
stove ; very good, but it is beyond her means, 
and, especially as she only cooks for two, her 
own easily answered all demands. Again, 
she is tempted into buying a fine " armoire," 
etc., keeping herself always poor by the 
steady payments. 

All this makes her think furiously of the 
money Carvol wastes on drink, and conse 
quently she becomes bitter towards him. He 
retaliates, and she makes her life miserable, 
sacrificing all her gay spirits and good-humor. 
Where it will end I cannot say, but at 
present the outlook is bad, as but lately, in 
one of her furious rages against him, she had 
a serious attack of hysterics, that laid her 
up for a week. But I fear that it has not 
taught her a lesson, as I still hear her harp 
ing at him daily. 

For her luxuries, though more commend 
able than his, she begrudges him his pleas 
ures. And though he cannot be easily excused, 
still the principle remains equally applicable 
to both. 




CONSTANCE 

CONSTANCE is a character, a typical rem 
nant of the old stock, strong and tough as 
her own prejudices and dislikes, a bright 
old fossil, crafty enough to look out for 
number one. To do her justice, she is very 
plucky and hard-working, willing to earn a 
franc when and how she can. 

In the summer, with Gabriel her husband, 
she cultivates ground enough to live upon and 
make something out of it for the winter, even 
raising a limited press of wine and cider. 



2OO 



MY VILLAGE 



Summer is their bright time ; but the winter 
is hard on the old folks. On cold days, they 
hang over a little wood fire in their wide hearth 
till dark, then at once go to bed, to save 
candles and fuel. Though their life, to an 
outsider, seems a 
dull and cheerless 
one, they seem to get 
as much enjoyment 
out of it as most 
people. He allows 
himself the luxury 
of a pipe, and she 
gossips. 

He tells me of his 
palmy days, when, a 
weaver, he had all the 
work he wanted. He 
had seen the trade gradually killed by machine- 
made cloth, and had taken to gardening. 
" Now," he said, " here I am, old and blind, 
good for nothing." Here he tried to light 
his pipe. " Ah ! you will have to help me. 
I can t see where to put the match ; yet," he 
boastfully added, " sometimes I hit it first 




CONSTANCE 



2O I 



time, while at other times I burn three or 
four matches before I can get it started. It 
is annoying when one does n t see clearlv." 




Poor old fellow ! he amused me though I 
pitied him. He had dropped from an inde 
pendent weaver to now take a pride in suc 
cessfully lighting his own pipe. 



202 



MY VILLAGE 



The important proprietors owning wood 
land allow the peasants one day in each 
week, during winter, to gather the dead wood. 




This is a great boon to the very poor ; and 
every Friday, the old women turn out for 
their rations of fuel. Constance is alwavs 
first on the ground, and manages to gather, 



CONSTANCE 



20 3 



and carry on her back, wood enough tor the 
ensuing week, bringing it a distance of sev 
eral miles ; while the old man, like an Indian 
chief, sits by the fire, too proud for this work. 
This wood-gathering permission allows them 
all they can gather and carry on their backs 




during the day, so that, by enterprise, they 
manage to lay in enough for the summer as 
well. 

The proprietors of the Valombre chateau 
are, or assume to be, very devout, and by 
promises of money and work induce those 
natives who come under their sway to attend 
mass. Old Constance, in conformity with 
such a prospective remuneration, attended 



204 MY VILLAGE 

church faithfully for six weeks. All she 
wanted, she claims, was employment for her 
" old man." This not forthcoming, she 
backslid in disgust, feeling severely imposed 
upon, and now speaks with great asperity of 
these people. 

The story she gives me of Pauline, her 
neighbor, is interesting at least, even should 
it prove untrue. Pauline, it seems, receives 
a pension of six hundred francs from a de 
parted mistress s executors, on condition that 
she says mass, or rather, has it said, and prays 
for the repose of the soul of the deceased. 
Constance naturally considers this an enviable 
situation. 

She tells me of her father, a soldier of Na 
poleon. He had been to Russia, and fought 
at, u What s its name r That place which 
caused them so many troubles ? " " Mos 
cow," I suggest. That s it. He had been 
frozen in the cold snows. " Napoleon was 
stupid to make war in winter." He had 
brought back a ball in his leg, etc., etc. He 
had lived to see the Prussians enter France 
in 1870; but it broke his heart, and he soon 



CONSTANCE 205 

went to his grave. " He was proud, you 
know," she added. 

Then she abruptly switches off to talk of 
her own troubles, for Constance must talk. 
u My poor old man," she says, " had a hard 
time of it last winter, when it was so terribly 
cold. You remember how cold it was ? 
Well, when I was away, tending my daugh 
ter s baby, he stayed in the house all alone, 
without a fire. I would have lighted one 
for him ; but, as he can t see, I was afraid 
he would burn himself and the house up. 
Is n t it a misfortune to be blind ? At 
times the rain would leak through the old 
thatch so badly that we could catch buckets 
full ; and, when I was away, I used to be 
afraid the old man would be drenched and 
frozen, or drowned," she added facetiously. 

Poor Constance has recently had a great 
grief to bear. Her grandson Fernand, a 
young man of nineteen, suddenly contracted 
a serious lung-trouble, which, in spite of all 
that could be done for him, developed into 
quick consumption, and in a few months 
numbered him among the dead. The day 



206 MY VILLAGE 

before his death, his mother, herself very 
delicate, had given birth to a little girl. 
Fearing that the news of her son s demise 
might give her a fatal shock, they kept the 
knowledge from her, and the following day 
the body was removed from the house, and 
the coffin, placed upon two chairs beneath 
a neighboring cross, awaited the priest and 
funeral procession. The ceremony was brief 
and impressive, the mourners standing with 
bared heads while the priest, in the name of 
the Church, claimed the body. The young 
man s comrades, with moist eyes, quite over 
come by the calamity, followed the hearse 
to the graveyard, bearing immense wreaths 
of glass beads, typical of French funerals, to 
place upon the grave. 

Poor Constance was broken-hearted ; but 
no sooner had she commenced to recover 
from this shock, than her daughter, now of 
course cognizant of her son s death, over 
come by this unexpected blow, pined away 
and died. As the old woman said, with tears 
streaming down her wrinkled face, " It never 
rains but it pours." Though it was feared 



CONSTANCE 



207 



that this second death would kill her, to 
every one s surprise and relief, after she had 
seen her daughter carried away to join her 
son, Constance bravely rallied. The baby 
was to be cared for. This saved her. 

And now, at the age of seventy-two, she 
has become nurse to this sucking babe. 

Six months later, when last I saw her, the 
combination was working capitally. The 
baby was thriving, and the old woman had 
taken a new interest in life. 





BOHEMIANS 

BENEATH the great chestnut-trees which 
border the main road, a family of Bohemians 
have installed themselves. They came trun 
dling into town towards dusk, a motley cara 
van, the tumble-down wagon-house drawn 
by a dubious-looking nag. Beneath it two 
dogs fitted their pace to his ; while behind 
came the head of the family, dragging after 



BOHEMIANS 209 

him a smaller cart. A true democrat, on 
the road he puts himself on a level with his 
horse, doing the same work. 

The caravan dropped anchor in the shadow 
of the big trees. The man unharnessed him 
self, then did the same for the horse. Here 
the equality of their positions came to an 
end, the horse being tied out to one of the 
trees to pass the night. He also had become 
a Bohemian, having long since forgotten what 
a stable was like, as his owners had lost the 
recollection of sleeping in a house. True, 
the wagon might be called a house, it being 
a big, ungainly box, rudely put together, 
boasting three small windows, a door, and 
the remains of an ancient coat of paint, the 
whole securely seated upon four wheels, two 
of which leaned, in sympathy, towards it ; 
the others, though undecided, still made an 
effort to stand straight. When in motion, it 
had something of the roll of a boat in a heavy 
sea. 

Out of this queer abode scrambled a con 
fused heap of children. When it seemed as 
though all were on the ground, still another 
14 



210 MY VILLAGE 

would appear, perhaps a trifle smaller than 
the last, though the difference in size between 
them was relatively slight. Poor, degraded 
little creatures, their manner of life had not 
encouraged a very robust growth. 

A fire was soon lighted, and supper cook 
ing. Night had already settled down ; and 
this curious group, looking hungry and 
cold, huddled around the fire, impatiently 
waiting the cooking of the " soup," formed a 
weird picture, lost, as they were, in the dark 
shadow of the trees, their faces fitfully lighted 
by the flickering flame, which shone against 
the inky background. 

Their precarious living they made by mend 
ing tins, kettles, etc. And early on the 
morrow the mother started off, looking for 
work, calling from house to house, insisting 
with great perseverance, at each gate, that 
there must be something with a leak which 
needed mending, glibly running off a long list 
of different utensils, till she succeeded in 
worrying something, though only a candle 
stick, out of nearly every house. 

The man, meanwhile, had installed his 



BOHEMIANS 



21 I 



bellows, fire, and tools, and calmly awaited 
her return, promptly attacking the work she 
brought him. A patient, hard-working 
creature, he looked as though so many 
storms had passed over his head, not high 
enough, however, for him to escape them, 
that both hope and fear were crushed from 




his existence, and quietly plodded on through 
life, accepting, without a murmur, the sun or 
the rain, the heat or the cold. 

The group, as seen by daylight, was as 
picturesque as when dimly observed at dusk. 
At night a weird misery was suggested, 
while the day showed it clearly in all its 
sadness and dirt. The tumble-down shed- 



212 MY VILLAGE 

cart looked more dilapidated and the children 
more miserable. 

Around the fire and bellows was now 
accumulated an incongruous heap of kettles, 
pans, pots, ladles, candlesticks, and everything 
that could possibly be mended by solder, 
big kettles, little kettles, copper pails, tin 
pails, of every size and imaginable shape, 
and in every degree of health, from the 
slightly rheumatic down to the condemned 
wreck. The tinker deliberately wrestled 
with them, each in its turn. Their weak 
ness was his strength. It is an ill wind, 
indeed, which blows no good. 

Among all this played four tiny, half-clad 
children, three boys and a girl, thin, puny, 
starved-looking unfortunates, shirtless and 
hatless, revelling in unwashed dirt, poverty 
and hardship in its most pitiful form. Still 
they played with a fair amount of spirit, 
accustomed to their lot, and apparently 
happy. 

They fished in the pails, and ladled and 
scooped, taking advantage of their strange 
toys, even triumphing over the well-fed and 



BOHEMIANS 213 

warmly-clad little peasants who looked on 
at this tempting array of kettles which they 
dare not touch. 

As in their play they called to each other, 
I caught their names, and was immensely 
surprised and amused by them. What they 
lacked in material wealth and dignity was 
made up in the titles they wore. The 
mother bore the name of Victoria, as did 
one of the little girls ; while the boys were 
respectively, if not respectably, Antonin, 
Augustus, and Antony. 

Apparently the mother, in her rambling 
life, had acquired, though perhaps she was 
born with it, a fair amount of romance, not 
withstanding the fearful realism of her exist 
ence, and gratified her passion by bestowing 
these dignified and ponderous titles upon her 
puny offspring. And the poor little things 
looked as though the weight had been too 
great to carry, and had stunted their growth. 

From the back window of the cart, filling 
it with their tiny bodies, two little prisoners 
looked out at me. They, alas, represented 
the sick-ward. The boy had a sore foot, 



214 MY VILLAGE 

and was compelled to look sadly on while 
his brothers romped among the pots and 
kettles. 

But the poor little girl, a pretty tot, was 
seriously disabled. While jumping from the 
wagon, she had broken her leg, and now, con 
fined to her wheeled prison for long weeks, 
could only drag herself to the window to 
look out upon the sunlight. 

A sad fate ! Poor, uncared-for little crea 
ture, doubtless improperly nursed, she may 
never recover, and, in addition to her already 
unpromising life, remain a cripple. My heart 
bled for her; so much misery and misfortune 
was very distressing. 

She, fortunately, appeared to take her fate 
more gayly than I ; joking and laughing 
with and at her brothers ; her young animal 
spirits seemed strong enough to rise even 
above this. 

These tinkers travel all over the North of 
France, going as far as the sea ; then wind 
ing back, following the same circuit, forming 
acquaintances and customers along the way, 
vagabonding along the highroads from 



BOHEMIANS 215 

spring to winter, whether the winds blow 
high or low, hot or cold. I remember 
having seen them come and go quite often. 
For months I would miss them ; then sud 
denly, while passing, would hear voices be 
neath the chestnuts, and on the morrow see 
them installed and hard at work. 

The woman possesses a good fund of 
happy spirits and vigorous energy, offsetting 
the man s apparent despair. But what a 
life ! Yet they have always lived it, and 
doubtless always will. Their children are 
born in the wagon, brought up in the wagon, 
will go on with their parents trade, and live 
and die in the wagon, just as another does in 
a fixed house. With such a training, when 
arrived at manhood, surely no other more 
settled life can ever tempt them or be even 
supportable. They acquire the habit of 
being uncomfortable, and apparently like 
it. 

For days, whenever I passed their wagon, 
I saw the pinched face of the little girl pa 
tiently looking out of her window. Poor 
little prisoner ! since she could not play her- 



2l6 MY VILLAGE 

self, she would at least watch the others. 
Then one day I missed them ; at daybreak, 
like the Arabs, they had folded their tents 
and silently stolen away. 

Three months later. Again they are back 
under the trees ; the little girl runs about as 
lively as the others, apparently none the 
worse for her accident. 

As I came along, the mother called to me 
from her wagon, " Heh ! Monsieur Smith, 
I have something to say to you." I had to 
stop and wait until she deliberately got down 
and came to me. She wanted to know what 
I did with my old color-tubes. I told her 
that I threw them away. " Well, give them 
to me ; though to you they are useless, to me 
they are useful." " All right," I responded, 
adding that Antony had already mentioned 
the subject to me, but that I had forgotten 
or had not time to think of it. " Ah," she 
retorted with a tone of reprimand, " you 
have no memory." Her coolness quite sur 
prised and amused me. 

The following day she banged on my gate 



BOHEMIANS 



2I 7 



until I appeared, when she demanded " those 
color-tubes." 

After passing the winter in Paris, on my 
return to Valombre I again found the band 




busily stirring about among the great chest 
nut-trunks. They hailed me familiarly, as a 
long-absent friend. Though not flattered, I 
was amused by the reception, and after the 



2l8 



MY VILLAGE 



usual questions back and forth regarding the 
health status, I asked them how they had 
passed the hard winter. " Oh, first-rate ! 
they had stuck it out in the wagon, and 
u You know, with the stove we re pretty 
warm in there." 

It really is astonishing how tough they 
are, and how they manage to keep alive and 
in cheerful spirits. There must be some 
thing invigorating attached to this Bohemian 
existence with its freedom, which keeps 
them up. 





MARIE S WEDDING 

PRETTY little Marie, the baker s daughter, 
has just been married, though her engage 
ment at one time promised to drag on in 
definitely ; a curious complication having 
arisen, and one quite surprising for such a 
slow, every-day village as Valombre, where 
life seems to flow calmly and smoothly, 
avoiding the rough jolts often met with in 
larger centres of civilization. 

It appears that young Ravin s father, a 
cook, being continually called away from 
home to do his work, his wife, to avoid 
the ennui of being thus so often a quasi 



220 MY VILLAGE 

widow, had taken a lover to help her while 
away the spare time. Ravin pere, not appre 
ciating this state of affairs, had unceremo 
niously left her and gone to England to cut 
out a new life for himself. While in that 
land of refuge for unfortunate continentals, 
he made love to and wooed a young Ger 
man. The couple, with their children, 
eventually came back to France, settling at 
Valombre. A short time before his death 
Ravin succeeded in obtaining a divorce from 
his first wife. 

Now, when young Ravin wished to be 
married, marriage being purely a legal con 
tract in France, a difficulty arose as to what 
name he could lawfully bear, that of his 
father not being recognized as his, he being 
the son of a bigamist, therefore an illegitimate 
child. His not being by birth a French sub 
ject added another serious complication. 

However, after much trouble and painful 
waiting in doubt, the night before the wed 
ding he was authorized to retain his father s 
name, the divorce being recognized as having 
legitimatized Ravin s children; and at last 



MARIE S WEDDING 



221 



he was married under the name he had always 
borne. 

The whole village had been much wrought 
up about the affair, and turned out to show 




its sympathy for the young couple. The 
whip-sawyer deserted his picturesque plant, 
and the mattress-cleaner her work, to wish 
good-luck to them as they left the mayor s 
office. 

From here the wedding-party went to the 
church, where the religious marriage was 



222 



MY VILLAGE 



celebrated. The picturesque procession then 
triumphantly paraded through the village, 




stopping at each hotel for a dance and re 
freshments. As they approached the " Lion 




d Or," the hotel-keeper, to show the proper 
spirit of enthusiasm, set off some fire-crackers 
in his yard ; but being rather lacking in 



MARIE S WEDDING 



confidence, as he lighted them he threw the 
bunch from him and ran wildly back out or 
harm s reach. His little dog, bearing the 
euphonious name of Vermouth, was so 
startled by this manoeuvre that he also 
skipped madly away, and 
on the explosion of the 
crackers hid in a corner, 
setting up a doleful howl. 
Pernod, the other dog, in 
side, hearing this terrible 
racket, also took fright 
and darted under the 
table, from which secure 
refuge he could not be 
dislodged, though friends 
endeavored to entice him 
forth with tempting bits 
of meat ; and for an hour his nerves were 
quite shaken, while the unconscious and happy 
wedding-party gayly marched down the street 
to the livelv strains of the cobbler s violin 
and barber s cornet (they being musicians be 
tween times), leaving confusion in its wake. 

Across the street the sick fat woman was 
breathing her last. Curious irony ! Thus 




224 MY VILLAGE 

nature makes preparations for replacing the 
departing. 

For three days the glad revellers exhibited 
their joy to the village, tramping, dancing, 
singing, and having a good time generally. 
But the procession was steadily losing 
strength, the old folks dropping off after the 
first day, to be followed on the second by 
others too footsore to stand the pace, while 
the third day showed only a small party of the 
very faithful, who remained true to their duty. 
To these the calm of evening brought a much 
needed rest; and Marie s wedding, so long de 
ferred, at last achieved, passed into history. 





ACHILLE AND CELESTINE 

I CAME back to Valombre, after a few 
months absence, to find Achille, now quite a 
broken down man, installed, with his wife 
and child, in his mother s house. 

Poor Achille ! I felt very sorry for him. 
His father s death, three years back, quite 
disheartened him. And no sooner had he 
fairly recovered from this shock, than his 
own child, a daughter of eighteen, his pride, 
about whose acquirements at school he 
boasted proudly, her science, as he called 
it, always of failing health, took to her 
bed, and, after a long, wearing, and expensive 



226 MY VILLAGE 

sickness, faded away, blighting his dearest 
hope. 

From this he never rallied ; he lost his gay 
spirits, even his conceit, and gradually broke 
down. The trouble was not definite at first, 
but slowly developed into clogged circula 
tion, then into varied and general rheumatism, 
with hidden complications based on despair. 

He took to his bed, and painfully exhausted 
his last savings, rising at last, an enfeebled 
man, unable to carry on his work. Seeing 
no issue, he sold out, and for a year managed 
to live on by means of this money. 

Six months ago, when I went to Paris, I 
left him at this point. Now, on my return, 
I find him my neighbor, lodged with Ctles- 
tine. He sadly drags his weary legs across 
the road to the garden, where for hours he 
quietly sits, lonely and subdued, waiting for 
the sunshine to bring him back strength. It 
is appalling to see how rapidly his hair is 
becoming gray ; I can see it change from 
day to day. It is fearful thus to watch life 
and strength fade away, and be able to do 
nothing. When, five years ago, I first met 



ACHILLE AND CfiLESTINE 22J 

him, he was a great, strong, active fellow, 
full of life and confidence, with an immense 
head of curly black hair. Now I see a 
broken, gray-haired old man, whose clothes 
hang loosely about him, slowly and painfully 
dragging himself out into the sunlight. 

Brave old Celestine goes off every day to 
work till nightfall in the fields, at the age 
of seventy-five still strong enough to try to 
support her unfortunate son, his wife and 
child. There is heroism in the peasant yet, 
and this plucky old woman will die in the 
breach rather than falter while her son needs 
her help. 

Brave old woman ! I see her also changing. 
Her heart is heavy, making her work doubly 
so. I am afraid that she may break down ; 
then things will be in a terrible state. Seventy 
years of hard peasant work, to live at last 
perhaps just long enough to see her last 
child carried to the grave before her. It 
seems as though the struggle had all been 
in vain. 

In telling me her troubles, she still holds 
Paris responsible for Achille s sickness, 



228 MY VILLAGE 

Paris, the arch enemy. u Ah, yes," she 
wailed, " since he served in that siege, he has 
never been the same boy. Look you, mon 
enfant, every one who took part in that affair 
has suffered from its effects since. The cold 
and exposure gave them their death. When 
he came back, he was sick for eighteen 
months with rheumatism, and now his 
worries and griefs have brought it all back, 
with worse complications. Poor boy ! he has 
had no luck ; and he used to be so astonish 
ingly strong." 

I remarked that she seemed now the 
strongest of the family. " Ah, yes, I m 
solid, but I ve had my share of sickness 
too. When my poor daughter died, I took 
sick. I had to talk of her ; and when I 
talked of her before meals, my appetite was 
gone, and when I talked of her after meals, 
it would n t digest. Often my grief was so 
great, I would fall down in a swoon, and for 
twenty-four hours no one knew whether I d 
live or not. Ah, yes, I ve had my share of 
sickness and trouble. And yet now I m 
more solid than manv who have suffered 



ACHILLE AND CfiLESTINE 229 

less ; and I m seventy-five this year, see 
that." 



With the summer Achille slowly, very 
slowly, regained some of his lost strength, 
and again took an interest in life. Though 
not strong enough to work, his improvement 
showed itself by the return of his critical 
powers, and a desire to show those who could 
work how they should do. And I see that 
this faculty is wearing on Celestine. His 
ways are not her ways, and I fear that she 
now finds his eternal superiority rather trying 
to bear. 

To-night I heard him, in a ponderous 
way, endeavoring to prove to her why reli 
gion was nonsense. She listened patiently, 
though incredulously. He dragged in Saint 
Louis s crusade, making the army a big one, 
while he was at it, two millions and a half. 
He told how the king had died, that his army 
was completely destroyed, and that Godfrey 
de Bouillon brought back the survivors. 
Achille means well, but events and char 
acters of history become sadly jumbled up 



230 MY VILLAGE 

in his mind. I was not cruel enough to in 
form him that Godfrey had been lying in his 
grave for nearly two hundred years before 
Saint Louis s campaign. 

Ce lestine seemed quite overcome by the 
extent of her son s knowledge, and beamed 
proudly, while his wife seriously corroborated 
his statements, much as an eye-witness of the 
events would do, adding occasionally that 
she had heard of this before. Poor, patient 
woman ! doubtless he had inflicted the story 
upon her many a time. 

Such is Achille s " science," of which his 
mother is so proud, and which gives him an 
authority over his neighbors. He has ac 
quired a smattering of knowledge of the great 
outer world, just enough to have made him 
top-heavy. With it he would be happy were 
his legs only strong enough to let him carry 
it around, that he might find new audiences. 
Alas ! it must be hard to have only two 
women to overpower with his weight, while he 
feels himself equal to so much greater things. 



LOST IN THE QUARRY 

PKRE FREDERIC died yesterday, aged 
seventy-eight. The cause of his death gave 
rise to a series of extravagant explanations. 
It seems, after summing up the different 
accounts, that the old man, while delivering 
manure at the Remy quarry, where a mush 
room-bed was being installed, had got lost, 
his light having accidentally gone out. He 
had lost his bearings, and wandered about 
hopelessly, looking for the exit. Now and 
then hope would come back. He felt that 
he was on the right road, and cautiously felt 
his way along a long corridor to avoid fall 
ing over the loose blocks of stone, only to 
be suddenly stopped by the end wall. Pain 
fully he worked his way back again to the 
starting-point, and set off down another cor 
ridor. Surely this must be the right one ; but 
no, another wall suddenly brought him to 



232 MY VILLAGE 

a standstill. Desperately he shouted, hoping 
against hope ; but the only answer was the 
echo of his own voice, reverberating through 
the dark deserted passages. And through 
the long night, which seemed to him an 
age, the old man despairingly groped his way 
through the great cold quarry, to be found 
at daybreak, exhausted and feverish, by the 
workmen coming in. 

His terrible experience had been too much 
for him, bringing on a severe chill, which, 
added to chronic lung trouble, carried him 
off after he had lain for two days unconscious 
in his bed. Palmyre cheerfully helped at 
the funeral, cooking soup for the invited 
mourners. A few days later she was again 
as busy, this time in fixing up Me lie s barn 

- Melie is the widow for the coming 
wedding-dinner, her son s. Frederic is ap 
parently already forgotten ; at least it is 
evident that they do not intend to allow his 
death in any way to interfere with the mar 
riage. He has made room for the next, and 
the next is now the centre of interest. 



PHONSINE 

PHONSINE and Jules, my landlord, seem to 
lack the power of getting ahead, except in 
increasing their family ; four small children 
being already the result, with a fifth soon 
coming. 

Phonsine is good-natured, but shiftless. 
To-morrow does not exist for her. True, 
to-day is often quite as much as she can 
attend to, with her steadily increasing brood. 
Still she is sadly wanting in that thrift for 
which the French peasant is justly cele 
brated ; while her husband, though energetic, 
seems to lack the calm matter-of-fact balance 
of his neighbors, endeavoring to run too 
many schemes at once, and, as a result, gener 
ally failing in all. 

She, however, comes of a working stock, 
being born in the field as a result of her 
mother s dislike to losing a day. But per 
haps her unceremonious advent into the world 



234 MY VILLAGE 

started her wrong, and since she has never 
been able to get on the right track. 

When she goes on an errand or a visit, 
she turns the key in the door and trusts to 
luck taking care of the children. A short 
time back, while thus away, her eldest girl, 
a half-witted creature, playing with a burn 
ing brand to amuse the others, threw it be 
hind some old umbrellas. Half an hour 
later Pauline, the neighbor, noticed smoke 
leaking through the broken window and 
above and below the door. To give the 
alarm and burst open the door was the work 
of a moment. The bewildered children, 
afraid for what they had done, dared not call 
any one, and would doubtless have been 
asphyxiated but for her opportune arrival. 
The fire was soon put out, the damage be 
ing relatively slight, an armoire alone being 
destroyed. 

Poor Phonsine was in despair when I 
called, by accident, a few hours later. The 
floor was littered with water and burnt em 
bers. Everything and everybody was in 
disorder ; the children crying, their mother 



PHONSINE 235 

nervously yelling at them to stop, though 
bitterly weeping herself. The burnt rafters 
overhead showed that the fire with a little 
better start would have been serious. 

For a week the blackened ruins of the 
armoire stood outside the door, awaiting the 
examination of the insurance agent, who 
eventually turned up, and paid the damages 
demanded, doubtless grateful to fate that he 
had not the whole house to pay for. 

One bright morning, the following spring, 
I met Jules moving out, his wagon loaded 
with barrels, pieces of furniture, and a motley 
mixture of odds and ends. Laboring under 
great nervous excitement, he explained to 
me that Phonsine and he could n t agree. 
She wanted to be master, and so did he. He 
claimed that she had told him to go, and he 
was going. " Now she would see," etc. I 
remonstrated with him, but he was furious 
and would listen to nothing Shortly after, 
Phonsine came to me to tell her story, with 
many tears. Of course she blamed him, 
a story of drink, etc. 



236 MY VILLAGE 

The affair created quite a scandal, ending 
by his coming back, ashamed of himself, after 
an absence of about ten days. 

Poor Phonsine ! Fortune has decidedly 
turned against her. Jules has got himself 
in trouble by blackguarding his landlord, to 
whom he owes a year s rent, and is to be 
sold out for debt. Phonsine is broken-hearted, 
but the now irate landlord insists on avenging 
his wounded dignity. 

To-day, Sunday, the sale took place. The 
meagre household goods, spread out before 
the door for buyers, made a sad show, every 
thing being more or less disabled. Phonsine 
had come down from Paris, where they had 
moved for a fresh start, to try and buy for 
herself the few things she wished to keep. 
She told me that, in addition to her many 
woes, Clemence, her eldest child, was now in 
a hospital as a result of a severe fall during 
her absence. 

The bailiff" started the sale bv offering a 
number of dishes as a lot. These brought 
seven cents. Other odds and ends following 



PHONSINE 237 

were knocked down for similar small sums, 
the buyers taking their purchases and stack 
ing them on the lawn before the house, till 

O 

gradually all Phonsine s worldly goods were 
spread about, now the property of perhaps 
twenty different people. Even the fence was 
sold, till not a vestige of anything which 
had belonged to her remained, and the last 
trace of her household existence in Valombre 
was scattered to the winds. 

It was sad to see this complete ruin of 
what had been a relatively comfortable and 
happy family when I came to Valombre. 
And now she, w T ith her five children and 
husband, empty-handed, start life afresh in 
Paris. I don t see how they can possibly get 
on there, but sincerely hope they may. 

To-day I was informed that Clemence 
had died in the hospital. Poor, unfortunate 
Phonsine ! her cup is really full. 

Palmyre, her sister-in-law, had been to the 
funeral. She told me that Phonsine and Jules 
were both terribly broken down by their loss. 
They had become accustomed to every sort 



238 MY VILLAGE 

of misfortune hut this, the hardest of all to 
bear. Palmyre herself was so upset by it 
all that she wildly hurried back to Valombre 
as soon as the funeral was over, that she 
might sit down and gain new courage in 
the old, familiar surroundings. Paris, under 
such circumstances, was too terrible a place 
to be in. Terrible Paris ! I could feel that 
she almost blamed it for this death. Agathe, 
another sister-in-law, came along as we were 
talking, looking very pale and sick. It had 
told on her severely. I was even surprised, 
as I had become accustomed to thinking that 
the peasant could stand his neighbor s misfor 
tunes with great complacence ; but this one 
was too great, and it was evident that she 
had really suffered. 

Six months later. Now everything is go 
ing to the dogs with the unfortunates. I 
found Phonsine high up in a cheap apart 
ment house, in a dirty quarter, living in two 
small, close rooms, she who had always 
know 7 n the open fields and pure air. TW T O 
of the children were down with measles. 



PHONSINE 239 

She told me a sad story of how her husband 
drank, had given her no money for weeks. 
She did not know what to do, and thought of 
going back to Valombre. She regretted having 
come to Paris, charging it with her child s 
life. Poor Phonsine ! 




$ 




HARVEST, 1894 

THE weather was lowering and forebod 
ing. I felt heavy and dull, in harmony with 
the day, as I started off to work, and instead 
of climbing the abrupt bluff among the great 




chestnut roots as usual, slowly sauntered on 
beyond to the new road, Jean Paul s work 
of last winter. It gave Jean Paul a winter s 
work, but spoiled the pretty little wood 
through which it passed. He did his work 
well, and to-day I appreciated the easy slope. 
16 



242 MY VILLAGE 

How different the plain seemed from what 
it was last year ! Then it was all yellow 
and gold, giving the impression of teeming 
with life and wealth ; its golden beauty a 
literal representation of its value. But to 
day, under the dull wet sky, treacherous 
and dark, all was calm and gray, calm, 
even dead, as com 
pared with last August. 
The stacks formed 
dark gray-brown spots 
heavy and dull. There 
were no signs anywhere 
of gayety or life. The 
few harvesters at work 
^ -J seemed less important 

than usual, simply a few darker spots in the 
general dark mass ; and the impression I 
received was that everything was fixed and 
motionless, sad in its quietness. The contrast 
was astonishing with last year s harvest, where 
the sun, plaving hide-and-seek with its lights 
and shadows among the brilliant yellow grain, 
gave to the air a movement of intense life. 

o 

Everything vibrated with color ; and the peas- 




HARVEST, 1894 243 

ants working among the stacks, their light 
shirts and shining blades making brighter 
spots against the bright wheat, gave an im 
mense, never-ceasing lively movement to 
the whole plain. Even the clouds caught 
the spirit, and flitted gayly along above the 
earth, with the sun s glow playing gleefully 
among their tips, now lighting up one 
mass into a dazzling, cottony heap of some 
thing intangible and ever changing ; then 
casting the shadows of one cloud across 
another, each chasing brightly along after the 
other, while even the blue ether beyond 
appeared as if in motion, and seemed to come 
and go between the lively clouds. 

On the earth beneath the shadows danced 
nimbly along before the harvesters, flitting 
back and forth, now on the stubble-broken 
grounds, purple and blue ; then across the 
yellow fields before the scythe, lighter and 
apparently almost blue in contrast with the 
yellow glow of gold which hedged them in. 

The air seemed filled with birds chirping 
and busy ; the lark adding his clear note 
from far up, up among the blue, where the 
eye with difficulty followed him. 



244 MY VILLAGE 

The wheat was ripe and dry, and great 
wagons came empty and went away loaded 
with their rich burden. The immense stacks 
gradually reared themselves about the plain. 
Busy, tiny figures capped their summits, 
stowing away the grain for the coming 
winter. All was life and joy. 




Yes, indeed, the difference between then 
and now is great, not alone as the difference 
between sunshine and shadow, but almost as 
the difference between life and death, between 
joy and sorrow. Then the work had some 
thing buoyant and inspiring about it ; now 
the hard labor is apparent. 

All is dull and quiet ; the clouds are mo 
tionless ; they seem as of lead, moored for- 



HARVEST, 1894 245 

ever by their weight, almost touching the 
earth, as though about to crush it beneath 
their cheerless mass. 

The light tries to break through in the 
west for a moment ; the horizon gives 
promise of life. A pale silvery band 
reaches out as though to crowd away the 
dark clouds and find a footing ; but soon an 
ominous feeling comes over the air, a chilly 
breath as of the dead, and the bright west 
has suddenly grown dark and inky, the silver 
belt is hopelessly buried beneath the storm. 
The distant hills but a moment before blue 
are now lost in a hazy, heavy mist ; their 
forms seem washed away, and earth and sky 
are run together ; the clouds have at last 
fallen, and the rain has dropped its veil upon 
them. 

I watch it coming, advancing irresistibly 
and relentlessly ; now it has covered Pon- 
toise ; the town is lost from the world. 
Steadily it comes, rushing and swishing, with 
gusts of wet wind as forerunners, bringing a 
chill of despair and discouragement. 

Now the storm has reached the village ; 



246 MY VILLAGE 

the trees bordering the plain are soon lost in 
the white mist. I see it coming towards me 
with the speed of a race-horse, and must 
stand and face it, too late for escape. And 
now it is here ; rushing and beating, it lashes 
the ground like a host of seething serpents, 
pounding and splashing, dashing the light 
earth about. Scattered straw is blown in 
every direction, wheat-stacks are torn apart 
and overthrown ; and the rain beats down 
and soaks the ripened grain, bringing de 
struction and ruin with it. Cruel, blind 
nature, like some mighty wild beast bent on 
tearing and destroying, merciless in its fury ! 

The wind steadily rises, whipping the rain 
across the fields. Starting with an angle of 
forty-five degrees, it now sweeps horizontally 
above the ground, beating into my face, 
wetting through clothes as though cloth was 
but tissue paper. 

The plain has lost all form. It has no 
beginning, no end. All is a dirty, gray mist, 
hissing viciously to the right, to the left ; 
above, and around, rain, rain, and nothing 
but rain. Yes, its accompaniment, the wind ; 



HARVEST, 1894 247 

they are playing furious, tragic larks to 
gether, ruining and overthrowing many 
months hard labor. 

As the storm broke, I saw a couple of 
reapers running for shelter. For ten minutes 




or more I lost them, nothing but rain being 
visible. A lull of a moment allowed me to 
see them again, crouched beneath a small 
stack, their coats thrown over their heads. 
Again the veil dropped, and I lost them ; 
and the rain beat down in torrents, till 
around me incipient brooks zigzagged among 
the stubble, gradually gaining in strength and 



248 MY VILLAGE 

rushing off down the slope of the plain to 
the village below. 

Slowly, and after innumerable fitful at 
tempts to keep on, the storm spent itself, 
and through the mist the dark stacks loomed 
up, now heavy and soaked. And the plain, 
which before appeared but sad, now looked as 
though death and destruction had wooed it 
to keep it in bondage till the last day. 



MERE POSTOL 

GOING this evening after potatoes to 
Postol s, I knocked on the door ; no answer. 
I went into the hall. Looking through the 
glass of the kitchen door, I saw the old 
woman at work, erect, by the table. I 
knocked again ; she remained unmoved. 
Stupid, stolid, suspicious old peasant, so 
cautious that she would n t commit herself 
by a word until I should have spoken, not 
even willing to compromise by saying, 
"Who s there?" or "Come in,"- the 
typical, cautious, old-time peasant. 

A funny-looking little old woman she was, 
with her bird-like head, sharp nose, lip fallen 
in where the teeth had been, chin pointed and 
projecting, with a round, ball-like forehead 
towering above a pair of little shiny eyes, 
alert and shrewd, a woman of perhaps 
eighty years of age. 



250 MY VILLAGE 

She went down into the dark cellar, and 
got me the potatoes. I asked her if she had 
any milk. " Yes, plenty ; but it s five 
sous a quart," she added hastily. " For 
me or for everybody ? " I asked. u Oh, for 
everybody ; five sous, or I 11 set the cow 
calving." This startling menace amused me 
immensely. I had never heard any of that 
style before, though accustomed to the 
peculiarities of peasants. 

Tricky old hag ! she had no intention of 
u setting the cow calving." With typical 
inconsistency, she hastened to recommend 
her milk, saying, " Ah ! it s not like that 
you get from the milkwoman." 

Later in the day I went back to her to get 
some of this milk. I found her, with her 
daughter, husband, and a neighbor, all sitting 
in the barn, enjoying the heat given out by 
three cows. Here they spend the cold 
evenings. They had prospered, and built 
a pretentious new house ; but the old instinct 
remained too strong, and here they were 
enjoying the warm, heavy air of the cattle, 
partly from force of habit and partly from 



MERE POSTOL 251 

the ruling principle of economy, economy 
of fuel. 

Here the neighbor, an old woman, en 
deavoring to tell me how much Paris had 
grown since she was young, said, " It has 
grown three-quarters bigger ; " and, this not 
seeming enough, added, " and the other 
quarter." It could not have been better 
said even in Ireland. 




THE INVASION 

AN army corps has just passed through the 
village, on its way to the grandes manoeu 
vres, creating quite a stir of bustle and 
excitement. Many of the soldiers were 
lodged for the night with the villagers. 
Sentinels were placed out on the plain, 
guarding the sleeping camp playing at war. 

All this sets the old people talking of the 
last war, real war. Constance describes 



THE INVASION 



253 



the invasion to me in a rambling, disjointed 
way, though vivid in details, stolidly, as 
seen by a peasant ; for the question of patriot 
ism interests him little. His ideas are limited 
to his soil, and the profits it brings him. His 
egotism being colossal, the rest of the world 




may be going to pieces ; as long as it does not 
personally affect him, he takes no interest 
whatever in its fate. 

" Yes, indeed, I remember the Prussians. 
A famous fear they caused us. We thought 
we were all going to be killed ; for war, you 
see, is a terrible thing. Men become wicked. 
We knew that they were around Paris, but 



254 MY VILLAGE 

none had passed our wav. Yet the war had 
upset things. I was anxious to deliver the 
cloth Gabriel and I had woven, and so started 
one day, with my donkey, for Trepillon. 

" As I got on the hill above Re my, I saw 
the soldiers everywhere. There were so many 
around Paris, the) could not take care of them 
all ; so they sent them down on us. I was 
afraid they would take my cloth ; so I started 
back, for you know soldiers steal everything, 
and they were the victors " (giving the impres 
sion that she considered the right of the victor 
as legitimate), " when Pang ! pang ! I 
heard the guns going. What a noise ! They 
were all firing at once. It was real war. 
Thev were fighting across the river. I 
could see the Prussians on one side ; but 
the francs-tireurs (a company of patriotic 
irregulars) were behind the trees on the 
other, and shot them down as they came 
through a field of cabbage. 

" Then they blew up the bridge ; so the 
soldiers had to go away around by Parman. 
They were so mad that they burned the 
whole town. All the thatch roofs were in a 



THE INVASION 255 

blaze. All the sharpshooters they caught 
they shot at once. 

" The artillery brought up their cannon on 
the plain behind the cemetery, and fired all 
at once towards Nesle. Oh, what a fearful 
noise ! Real war. The cbautnicres blazed 
everywhere ; for, you know, the thatch burns 
easily. The sky was all lighted up. 

u The soldiers were mad because they had 
had a good many killed ; and when they came 
into Valombre, we were frightened. They 
took M. Caffin, the mayor, and tied his 
hands, and led him barefooted off to L Isle 
Adam. They thought he was a franc- 
tireur. But after a while they let him go, 

O 

when they found out that he was all right. 

" At Parman they took a woman who re 
fused to give them oats for their horses out 
in a field, and tied her up, and covered her 
with brush, and burnt her up. Oh, yes ; 
you don t believe me, but it is true, it is in 
the histories. 

" At Valombre they were divided among 
the houses. I had two at my house, whom 
I kept for sixty days. No, they were not 



256 MY VILLAGE 

wicked, poor devils ! The war was no fault 
of theirs ; they had to fight. I cooked for 
them ; and when they saw my bread, they 
threw theirs away ; they liked mine because 
it was whiter. I hid away everything, so 
that they would not steal our things. They 
amused themselves by getting my donkey 
drunk, and thought it huge sport ; but this, 
with his want of exercise, killed him. It 
was a great loss for us. But I sold the body 
to an enterprising butcher, or supply agent, 
who managed to get it through the lines into 
Paris, where it was resold at a good profit 
to the starving citizens. 

" The Prussians did not steal the furniture ; 
but they took anv little thing they could lay 
their hands on. One of them had a fine 
Cashmere shawl he had stolen somew T here 
near Paris ; for wherever the house was 
deserted, they had a right to take what they 
pleased. He intended to give it to his 
mother. One day I threw it behind the 
bed, as though it had fallen there ; but when 
he came to go away, he upset the house until 
he found it. 



THE INVASION 257 

u They broke a good many doors, and ran 
sacked all the empty houses ; for every one 
who had money enough had gone away to 
Normandy. But it did them no good, for 
the Prussians were everywhere. So they had 
to come back, and found their doors broken 
and their houses gutted. 

" The soldiers would play with my little 
girl till the trumpets sounded ; then they 
would go down to the Place to drill, 
where they had their cannon all set up, 
ready to kill the people if the francs-tireurs 
should come. 

" It was a hard time for us. The men 
our men did not work. No one would 
cultivate the land when he thought the 
Prussians would have the benefit. All work 
stopped, and we had to spend all our savings 
to live with. They all went, till we had 
nothing left. Sad times for us ! We have 
never been able to save anything since. We 
are too old now, you see. Ah ! one has hard 
experiences in this life. 

" And now my old man is blind. He can t 
work ; we have to live on our children s 
17 



2 5 8 

bread. Ah ! if the Prussians had not come, 
we would have our money now. 

" The Prussians, when they saw my father s 
medal, knew he was an old soldier of Napo 




leon, and they did not bother him. They 
would salute him, because he had been a 
soldier of the great Napoleon. Napoleon 
was a great soldier, you know, and had been 



THE INVASION 259 

in their country more than once, I don t 
know how many times ; but my father used 
to tell me. But I have n t a good memory 
for all those names and battles. 

" War is a very bad thing. Lots of the 
young people want the war to come again. 
But they have never seen it ; they don t 
know what it is. It is a bad thing." 



CARVOL AND THE FETE 

ANOTHER Fourteenth of July has come, 
and the village is celebrating. 

I notice, as a side-show of the fete, that 
the men are gradually giving themselves over 
to the flowing bowl. Here and there I see 
the women flitting off to their cellars in the 
side hill to bring wine and cider. Shortly 
after, patriotic voices and songs well out 
through the windows of the house where the 
wine has gone in. 

As the afternoon turns into evening, the 
drinking is hard and heavy, and weary men 
unsteadily carry their loads from the saloons 
across to the Place and from the Place back 
to the saloons. 

Just as I sit down to smoke after supper, 
Carvol comes laboring up the lane. Heavily 
he flops down by his door, relapsing into a 
reflective state, and, notwithstanding Rosalie s 



CARVOL AND THE FETE 261 

spirited berating, makes no remarks. At last 
an idea comes to him ; he hunts through his 
pockets, and finds a fifty-centimes piece (ten 
cents). " I m going to buy some sky 
rockets," he says, and, once having got this 
absurd idea, nothing can change him ; so off 
he starts, accompanied by his little dog, who 
seems to watch over him whenever he is 
drunk. 

Later I saw him in the store making his 
purchases, purchases which caused him a 
lot of reflection. He had too much to choose 
from, and with difficulty, after bothering the 
shop-girl for a good half-hour, decided on two 
rockets. Here I missed him ; but soon saw 
him coming out of his house with a match 
in hand to set off his rockets. Just here 
Rosalie furiously rushed at him, crying, " You 
drunkard, are you crazy ? Do you want to set 
the thatch roof on fire ? " And in spite of 
his strenuous protestations, she knocked him 
over, and took away his match and rockets ; 
at the same time giving him a terrible tongue- 
lashing. 

To my surprise, he sat leaning against the 



262 MY VILLAGE 

wall as though dumfounded, and made no 
protest. Thus he sat and reflected for some 
five minutes or more ; then suddenly the in 
justice of the case dawned upon him, and 
he clumsily gathered himself upon his feet, 
swearing that as he had bought those rockets 
they should go off. Things looked bad ; but 
fortunately the family managed to quiet him, 
promising to set off his rockets later, and his 
wrath passed off in sullen mumblings. 

A little later in the evening Kaiser set off 
the rockets for him ; and as he was now 
nearly helpless, they succeeded in dumping 
him into bed, and Carvol ceased to be a part 
of the fete. 

While this family scene was taking place, 
a busy man had lighted, one by one, the 
myriad of little lights which decorated the 
Mairie and the Place. As darkness settled 
down, the effect became very pretty indeed, 
the big " R. F." shining out from the wall, 
while numbers of Chinese lanterns vied with 
the glass lights ; and the crowd commenced 
to gather. The band and firemen, who had 
been parading and playing all the afternoon, 



CARVOL AND THE FETE 263 

were now hard at work eating and drinking 
at the hotel, Valombre paying the bills. 
This is the way in which their services were 
paid for ; a general banquet rewarding them 
for their hard, patriotic work. The mayor 
ran things and kept count of expenses, care 
ful not to go beyond the amount set apart 
for this/?te. 

At the beginning of the repast scarcely a 
sound was heard from these fifty or sixty 
men busily eating, each being on his good 
behavior. But once the meal well over, the 
hubbub was bewildering, the wine had 
loosened their tongues, all hands talked at 
once; some even sang; others shouted in the 
joy of animal spirits, and all enjoyed 
themselves. 

This dinner settled, they wandered across 
the street to the ball-ground, the grass-plot 
before the Maine. The orchestra struck up 
a waltz, and in a moment the Place was 
alive with jumping humanity, and the ball 
fairly started, and good for all night, till the 
small hours of the morning. 

Very, very picturesque and pretty was the 



264 xMY VILLAGE 

scene. Bright, happy faces lighted by vari 
colored lanterns were a pleasure to look on, 
and I heartily enjoyed the sight. Every one 
seemed to be so happv and so healthily 
happy. Faithfully I added my mite of 
patronage to the dance ; and Julie and I 
labored through the dense crowd of dancers 
and jumpers. During one collision Mede 
Romaru hailed me, asking whether everything 
went as I wished nowadays. I cheerfully 
answered in the affirmative, returning the 
question. " Ah, no ; things did n t go well 
with him." This was all I got, though he 
tried to tell me the story as we both whirled 
round and round, couples flitting between us, 
and we steadily drifting apart. The experi 
ence was amusing, thus to listen to a serious 
doleance while in the heart of a lively dance ; 
but to Med it was all right. Had it been 
physically possible, he would have given me 
all the details. 

Being but an indifferent dancer, my legs 
found the work rather hard, the ground being 
painfully uneven, and grass not being the 
easiest thing in the world to glide over while 



CARVOL AND THE FETE 265 

endeavoring to protect your partner from 
fearful collisions. I withdrew after this 
dance ; but my place was soon filled, as the 
whole village was there, trying to dance. 

The young and bold dance first ; while 
the older people wait till later, when the 
green has lost the most of its exhausted 
dancers. I often thus notice good old people 
faithfully waiting till midnight to get a chance 
to dance again and bring back the souvenir 
of youth, their opportunities and excuses for 
dancing being very scarce. 

The fete, as a whole, is lively and healthy, 
an admirable means of letting these hard 
working peasants enjoy themselves, if only 
for once a year. 



THE BLACK SHEEP 

POOR Rosalie ! Several times to-day I 
noticed that she appeared to be in great 
trouble, weeping freely and vigorously. 
Ce lestine kindly endeavored to calm her, 
though I could form no idea of the cause of 
the trouble, supposing it to be another of the 
many rows between Rosalie and her drunken 
husband. I became interested in the subject 
on seeing Celestine hunt for her key, open the 
door, and take Rosalie inside to console her. 

Later in the day I heard something about 
Kaiser s being drunk ; but as this is a com 
mon occurrence, I came to the conclusion 
that he must have been getting into trouble 
of some kind, and took advantage of meeting 
Ce lestine to ask what was the matter. The 
old woman assumed a most tragic expression, 
and with tears in her voice told me impres 
sively that Kaiser had been sent to prison ; 



THE BLACK SHEEP 267 

meaning that he had been arrested. He, 
with several comrades, while drunk had stolen 
syme fish from the fisherman s boat, and as 
a result had been taken away to-day by the 
gendarmes. 

While admitting that it was too bad for 
Rosalie, I did not think the case very grave, 
and so suggested. " Ah, but that is n t all," 
said Celestine. He had already been ar 
rested once before, and in some way or 
another, the explanation being very vague and 
rambling, had dodged the payment of his fine. 
Doubtless the mayor was cognizant of this 
part of the affair, but closed his eyes to it ; 
the peasants holding together in astonishing 
solidarity when it comes to avoiding the 
law. Now it was feared that this second 
offence, added to the first disregard of the 
law, would go hard with him, and that his 
chances of being sent to prison were more 
than good. 

Poor Rosalie ! how delighted she had been 
when Kaiser was exempted from military 
service on account of his thumb ! What a 
fete she made of it ! She thought that she 



268 MY VILLAGE 

had saved a son and cheated the government, 
that great enemy. 

But he, left behind in Valombre while his 
companions went as soldiers, had wandered 
sadly around like a bird of an odd species, 
looking for a double. Forced to chum with 
boys younger than himself, or men older, he 
had drifted into the companionship of a lot of 
vagrants of the latter age, and had easily 
adapted himself to their habit of drink. The 
army with its hard discipline might have 
saved him. Now, instead of serving his 
country in a dignified way as a soldier, he 
will serve the state as a convict. 

Rosalie threatens to take her life ; Frosine, 
the fat, good-natured wife of the mayor, tells 
her to do nothing foolish, and very kindly 
consoles and encourages her ; but Rosalie s 
heart is big with grief. 

The affair has been hushed up, the fisher 
man magnanimously refusing to appear ; 
and, through the connivance of the mayor, 
the prison-door has opened, and Kaiser is 
given another chance. 




BY THE RIVER 

DURING summer Valombre is quite a 
resort for enthusiastic fishermen. On Sun 
days family parties come down from Paris, 
and, with a wonderful lot of gear, install 
themselves along the shady banks of the Oise, 
where, by strictly attending to business, 
sacrificing every rational pleasure of life, 
they may catch a few modest gudgeon. 

Innumerable are the poles dangling over 
the swift-running stream. But easily num 
bered are the fish caught. Yet, notwith 
standing the great disproportion between 
outlay and returns, nothing can dampen, let 



270 MY VILLAGE 

alone discourage, the enthusiasm of the 
devoted fishers. Their patience is some 
thing phenomenal, and night alone can 
put a stop to their sport. 

Through the week the villagers replace the 
Parisians ; and a constant interest is accorded 
to adventurous fish. At all times one finds 
these earnest disciples of Izaak Walton 
patiently watching their floating lines, 
some from boats ; though most of them select 
sheltered spots along the bank, where, half 
dozing, half waking, they calmlv wait till 
the taking of a misguided- fish arouses a 
sudden enthusiasm, to drop again slowly 
back to the original, patient calm. 

As I worked to-day by the river, below 
me on the bank sat one of these fishermen. 
I heard him carrying on a conversation with 
a crony who had floated down in a boat and 
now lazily rested on his oars. 

Their remarks, as I caught them in a 
fragmentary way, amused me very much. 
At first they talked fish, but had apparently ex 
hausted the subject about the time I arrived. 
A painful lull here followed, broken by the 



BY THE RIVER 



271 



fisherman s suggesting that he had been 
shaved to-day. At first glance this remark 







gave but slight opening for conversation ; but 
the boatman, grasping at a straw, asked the 
fisherman if he shaved himself. This gave 
the latter a chance to tell how and when he 



2J2 MY VILLAGE 

had been shaved. Sometimes he shaved him 
self; but to-day he had Colignon do it, 
Colignon, that local star of many talents ! 

Here the boatman told about his shaving, 
etc. ; then wandered on to tell of his grand 
father, who had shaved himself up to the age 
of eighty-seven. This excited the fisherman ; 
and I heard him wildly endeavor to hold his 
own ; though here I lost the plot, as both 
struggled together, for the supremacy. I did 
catch the startling remark that a barber was a 
" sort of artist," u like a painter, you know " 
(painters being now familiar to the natives of 
Valombre). This comparison rather shocked 
mv pride ; but being only a listener, I had to 
submit in silence. 

The shave subject kept conversation going 
for about fifteen minutes ; and then, both 
exhausted, a silence painfully oppressive fell 
over the river, broken desperately by the 
boatman s, " Well, I must be going ; " this 
being his means of escape from the embarrass 
ing position into which the exhaustion of 
ideas had thrown him. The fisherman 
breathed freer, as his situation was more 



BY THE RIVER 



273 



awkward, being forced to sit in place, and 
unable gracefully to beat a retreat. 

As the boatman rowed away, an old woman 
came along, driving a cow and three sheep. 
Having no one else to talk to, she talked to 




them. I could hear her afar off, and, not 
looking up, was surprised to see but one 
person, when she came by me. She pounced 
on the fisherman ; and they had quite a 
spirited talk for a short time. But he in 
his weakened condition was no match for 
18 



274 MY VILLAGE 

her, and was only saved by the cow s strolling 
off in the field, forcing its owner to chase it. 
The procession moved up my way. She 
looked encouragingly at me ; but I was too 
busy. So she tried a boy fishing a few rods 
farther up the stream. He was unsatis 
factory ; so again she resorted to the un 
responsive sheep, berating them for their 
stupidity. Life saw too dull here ; and in a 
short time the procession turned back and 
wound out of sight, behind the trees on a 
bend of the river, where the women were 
washing. 

Now all was again quiet. I worked on. 
Suddenly I heard quite a disturbance behind 
me ; and on looking around saw the 
triumphant bov landing a fish of about three 
inches in length. Though beaming with 
pride at his success, he half apologized for 
its diminutive size, by saying, "It isn t big, 
but it s a fish, just the same ; " showing the 
true fisherman s spirit. 

Here the sun came out, driving me awav ; 
and I left boy and man silently fishing, or, 
rather, watching their lines. The silence 



BY THE RIVER 



275 



only broken by the swash of the river, as a 
tug steamed by towing a canal-boat ; or the 
crack of the driver s whip on the tow-path 
across the stream. A pastoral silence in a 
pastoral setting ! 




PALMYRE 

PALMYRE went up to Paris with me on 
the train. She was going to see Phonsine, 
not having seen her since Clmence s death, 
and dreading the explosion of the mother s 
grief which awaited her. 

D 

The idea had taken her suddenly, " just 
like that," she told me. In her basket she 
carried a good fat rabbit, newly killed. On 
arriving in Paris she intended buying a white- 
rose bush for the little girl s grave before 
going to the house. 

Good soul ! she was also taking up a sketch 
of the child which I had made two years 
before. This she dreaded, she said. She 
knew that there would be a scene, but the 
portrait must be delivered some time ; so it 
might as well be faced out and over with 
now as well as later. Agathe, her sister, 
would n t go, as she feared this climax, and 



PALMYRE 277 

did n t feel her nerves strong enough to stand 
it. A few days later, however, she in turn 
sent up to Phonsine a good bag of freshly 
gathered beans and other vegetables, as her 
offering of good-will. 

Now Palmvre seems worried ; her son is 
to be married to a girl in Pontoise ; evidently 
Palmyre is n t satisfied, as she shows but little 
enthusiasm when speaking of this prospect. 

On meeting me, in a burst of enthusiasm, 
she invited me to the wedding dinner. 
Apparently she had become reconciled to 
the idea of the marriage. I tried to excuse 
myself, fearing that a stranger at table might 
interfere with the free enjoyment of the 
others. But she would n t have no ; so, to 
avoid wounding her, I accepted. 

As she came back from the train, where 
she had gone to receive the married couple, 
the wedding having taken place the day 
before at the home of the bride, she called 
for me, and I joined the procession. The 
godmother, a little old woman about four 



278 MY VILLAGE 

feet and a half high, took my arm, and we 
marched bravely along the high-road ; while 
the villagers came to their doors to see the 
show. 

First we went to the hardware store, 
where the goodwife, a relation to the groom, 
opened a number of bottles of wine. 
Palmyre had announced dinner for promptly 
half-past six ; yet here we sat well beyond 
the hour, no one appeal ed to bother about 
time. Gradually the party spread itself 
about the quarter ; each hunting for some 
guest behind time. Seven o clock went by, 
yet no signs of the stragglers. Palmyre 
impatiently sent out scouts after the party. 
These soon disappeared, and others were 
sent after them. Half-past seven ; and still 
each was wandering about, as though time 
were no object. 

At last, after a determined effort and good 
luck, she got them all together, or at least 
the bulk of the company ; and we sat down 
to table at twenty minutes to eight. 

The tables were spread in a neighboring 
grange, Fre deric s. This scheme had been 



PALMYRE 279 

decided on during the hot spell ; hut now 
that the weather had suddenly freshened, the 
idea was not as happy as it might have been. 
Though big wagon covers were hung at 
the open end of the shed to keep out the 
wind, the temperature was decidedly low ; in 
fact, here we were, the first of October, 
virtually dining out of doors at night. 

Every one made a brave show of enjoying 
the existing condition of things, just the 
same. But gradually, one by one, the hats 
were hunted up and donned ; and we ate the 
wedding dinner with covered heads. This 
unceremonious condition gave a peculiarly 
informal character to the proceedings. And 
yet, in spite of our hats, though we drank 
heartily and ate even more so, the cool air 
kept the general spirits rather quiet, down to 
the thermometer. 

Palmyre, to remedy things as much as pos 
sible, plied her guests with cognac, endeavor 
ing to raise the temperature artificially. 

The meal dragged on, with many a hitch and 
shuffle. Between the courses the waits were 
long ; the next dish being not yet quite 



280 MY VILLAGE 

cooked, causing delay. But each vied with 
his neighbor in keeping up a healthy 
gayety. 

It was very amusing to me to watch this 
happy group of peasants enjoying themselves. 
Sans gene was the order of the day. At first 
every one tried to be more or less dignified ; 
but, as the dinner proceeded, natural instincts 
and spirits took the lead, and each gave 
himself up to the impulse of the moment. 
All sham was thrown overboard. A guest 
taking a notion to say something to another 
at a far end of the table, would take his 
napkin and walk down the file, comfortably 
carry on his conversation, then scramble 
back into place as the next course came on. 
At times half the party were thus standing 
around the table ; occasionally, in their 
hurrying back, getting seriously tangled up in 
each other s chairs. And the noise and 
mirth kept steadily growing. 

Moru, at the head of the table, was in his 
glory ; his reputation, as a wit, already 
established, a reputation of long standing. 
Whenever he opened his lips to crack a joke, 



PALMYRE 281 

the rest beamed in anticipation, and at the 
climax paid their tribute to genius by boister 
ous explosions of laughter. 

The butcher opposite me made a deter 
mined endeavor to be funny ; at times, 
success failing to come to him, he would 
collapse, and look seriously sad ; but his 
spirits, if not his wit, were really good, and he 
soon recovered, to make another effort, and 
by dint of perseverance won his audience 
and triumphed through the rest of the 
dinner. 

During a discussion wherein one claimed 
the other was growing fat, I heard number 
two dispute the charge, giving as proof the 
fact that his coat, the eternal Sunday one, 
which he had had made twenty-five years ago, 
still fitted him. I had always felt that the 
wonderful coats and hats I saw at weddings, 
funerals, etc., must have belonged to some 
remote epoch ; and here was the verification 
of my suspicions. 

Towards eleven o clock the musical spirit 
seized the merrymakers , and songs were 
sung, and spoken ; for the peasant the words 



282 MY VILLAGE 

take precedence over the music. The young 
girls, of course, had to be coaxed. One old 

o 

woman, on the contrary, could not be 
stopped ; she had a reputation as a singer to 
keep up, and volunteered a song at every lull. 
She started by facing the bride and groom, 
and sang them their duties, one to the other, 
etc. At one part, when her song said " on 
this your wedding-day," she hastily interposed, 
" it was yesterday, but that does n t matter 
for the song," and went on. Palmyre fairly 
beamed. " My sister," she shouted to me ; 
" she can keep on this way until morning." 
She herself, in her great enthusiasm, endeav 
ored to sing. She did n t know any songs, 
but simply joined the others ; in time or not, 
it did n t matter, her happiness was great 
enough to drown all such trifles. 

Now the children, one by one, had fallen 
asleep on the table, and were carried off to 
bed. Midnight was approaching, and the 
party becoming boisterous, though still suffer 
ing from the effects of the chill air. This was 
the time for the clumsy, coarse songs, 
heavily spiced to suit the popular palate. The 



PALMYRE 283 

air did n t count ; the words carried the day ; 
and the good-natured souls roared at the 

O 

flagrant insinuations. 

O 

And vet, though the peasant is so coarse in 
his tastes, they really behaved very well, as a 
whole, throughout the meal ; quite agreeably 
surprising me, as I had expected much greater 
vulgarity. Here and there a child delighted 
its audience by singing a song of dubious 
quality, singing without understanding. To 
the peasant this was the height of wit, and he 
fairly suffered in his mirth. 

Palmyre s niece, helping in serving the 
dishes, amused me very much. She was a 
boisterous, vigorous character, and now, in 
her enthusiasm, would occasionally give her 
husband a love-tap on the cheek, a tap which 
closely resembled a blow, and seemed to 
make his head swim. And as I looked at 
him it seemed to me that his eyes had a wild, 
fearful look, as though continually dreading 
these stunning exhibitions of affection. With 
renewed interest I watched her as she came 
and went, and feared for the poor man as she 
neared his place. 



284 MY VILLAGE 

During the dinner Ale lie, old Fre deric s 
wife, cheerfully helped preparing the dishes ; 
Palmyre having helped her, two days before, 
in the preparations for the old man s funeral. 
She refrained from taking a conspicuous part 
in the feast, out of respect for her departed ; 
but she enjoyed her share in the kitchen 
with the helpers, and though not of the fete 
she was in it. 

The thrift of these peasants is still astonish 
ing to me, though now so accustomed to it. 
Here was Palmyre, who works in the fields, 
when she can get work, during the sum 
mer season at forty-five sous per day ; and 
yet she managed to offer this dinner, and a 
really good dinner too, all meat, of course, 
to make it a feast for the peasant, who 
usually makes the bulk of his meal on bread 
and vegetables, to about thirty people. It 
must have cost her at least a hundred 
francs. How she managed to do it, I 
cannot understand. But she did it, and 
heartilv ; and enjoyed the performance. 

Towards daybreak the chill night air at 
last was too much to bear ; and noisily the 



PALMYRE 285 

party broke up, drifting away into the 
darkness. 

When, on the following day, I compli 
mented Palmyre on the success of her dinner, 
she answered, " But wasn t it hard luck that 
it had to turn cold that particular night, while 
here we Ve been roasting for six weeks ? 
No luck ! " 



MY STREET: EVENING 

ROSALIE, sitting on her doorstep slowly 
shucking peas, complains of her work. Del- 
phine, from the other end of the alley, comes 
up, bringing her baby. " You have n t dined 
yet ? " she asks. " No ; Jean Paul and 
Kaiser have gone off to fish. They told me 
not to hurry, as they d bring back a mess." 

" Ah ! and my man went off with them 
too," interposes the other. " Oh," then cries 
Rosalie, " there s no use waiting. I m off 
to bed. We won t see them in a hurry." 
" But my man had n t a cent," says Del- 
phine. " That does n t matter. Once they 
are together, they 11 manage to get drink. 
You needn t wait for him." 

A worried look comes into the face of the 
younger woman. She thinks of how, only 
last night, her husband came home drunk, 
and brought trouble and dispute into the 
house ; and now, if he should do it again 



MY STREET: EVENING 287 

Just at this point a white figure puts in an 
appearance at the bottom of the street. The 
women s voices are hushed : " Is he drunk ? " 
Another good-for-nothing, the father of Del- 
phine. Anxiously they wait as he comes 
steadily up the path. As he passes, they 
hardly say, u Bon soir," holding their breath. 
But, happily, this time he is not drunk, and 
the worried women draw a freer breath as 
he sits down to play with the baby. 

After a few moments he goes ofF, and 
then another procession shows up, coming from 
the river. It is the fishermen ; and, behold ! 
they are not drunk, and have even brought 
back fish, and good big ones too. Jean Paul 
proudly throws them into Rosalie s lap with 
an exulting " How s that ? " And joy reigns 
in the court ; the black shadow of fear is 
lifted. 

Delphine flies ofF to cook her husband s 
dinner, while Kaiser sets to work to scrape 
the bright shining fish, littering the ground 
with the silvery scales. And the evening 
bids fair to pass quietly and happily, at least 
for the women. 




"LE SOURD" 

HE was so terribly deaf that for years he 
was known only as le sourd (the deaf man). 
His case was sad : he had outlived his time 
and friends. Some twenty years back his 
wife died; then his decline commenced. His 
trade, that of weaver, had already become 
obsolete. The old man patiently endeavored 
to work on in the old groove ; but facts were 
too strong and real, and his faithful loom 
had to give up the competition with steam 
machinery. 

He now had ceased to belong to his day, 
and found that the world needed him no 
more. Disconsolately he tried to adapt 



"LE SOURD" 289 

himself to the prevailing conditions, but the 
attempt was hopelessly condemned at the 
beginning. He was too old to learn a new 
trade. Nothing was left him but to hold out 
on what little he had amassed. But alone he 
managed poorly ; and gradually the house, 
the furniture, and himself fell into a sadly 
dilapidated condition. They all went to 
pieces together. In the windows, panes were 
broken and lost, their places patched in a 
nondescript manner. With him, panes had 
also fallen out. His sight became dimmed ; 
the old, battered doors hung feebly on their 
worn-out hinges, working no easier than did 
his rusty joints. Man and house were slowly 
decaying together, the one being a reflection 
of the other s state. 

He lost his hearing ; and his last pleasure, 
that right of old age, gossiping, was seriously- 
endangered, as the difficulties of making him 
hear were so ureat that none but the most 

D 

generous or most determined gossips would 
try to talk to him. And thus, to add to his 
other misfortunes, he found himself left more 
and more alone. 

19 



290 



MY VILLAGE 



Through all these lonely years the old 
man remained good-natured and lively in his 
wit, so that every one liked him. But no 
one in the busy village had time to pay much 
attention to him, and his loneliness must have 
weighed heavy. Often I have seen him 




wandering about as though in search of some 
one to talk to. He would climb to the plain 
and sit idly in the sun, watching the busy har 
vesters. After they had left, he would still 
linger, waiting, waiting for what he knew 
not. And life hung heavy on his hands. 
His wrinkled face, with its deep scars of 



LE SOURD" 291 

the battles of life, interested me, and I asked 
him to pose. The difficulty I underwent in 
making clear to him this idea was tremendous. 
Had I anticipated it, my courage would have 
faltered before approaching him. Added to 
the trouble of making him hear, was the even 
greater difficulty of getting into his head what 
I meant ; his ideas on posing being, naturally, 
deplorably vague. I shouted into his ear - 
the good one at the top of my lungs, till the 
air rang with the echo. A light of intelli 
gence suddenly beamed in his face. " You 
want me to do some gardening for you ? " 
I again took breath and came to the attack, 
and at last he got it. After the first pose, 
he took kindly to the work, and eventually 
became a sort of nightmare to me, as I found 
him at all hours outside my gate, lying ; n 
wait for me. 

As winter came on, the old man grew 
sadder, and looked terribly unhappy. His 
creaky house let in the wind too freely, and 
he shivered, alone, from autumn to spring. 

The last winter was a severe one for him. 
His fuel gave out, though he nursed it care- 



292 MY VILLAGE 

fully. He grew cold and colder. His 
physical suffering became so great that his 
moral ideas were shattered, and he thought 
of laying sacrilegious hands on his dear loom, 
to use as firewood. For weeks he fought 
away the idea, as being too terrible ; but, like 
a fearful obsession, it would come back and 
almost overpower him. Sadly he went down 
cellar, and looked at it ; but his heart grew 
weak. He loved it too much. He could 
not destroy what had been his companion, 
his mission in life, through so many years. 

He walked out of doors to fly the temp 
tation ; but every cold night brought it back, 
till, gradually, the poor, suffering, shivering 
animal dominated, and cried out for preser 
vation. Wildly he took his axe, and with 
tears dripping and freezing on his haggard 
cheeks consummated his crime. 

As the warm flames again thawed his heart 
back to life, remorse overpowered him ; but, 
alas ! too late. Poor old Gus ! His grief at 
thus severing the last tie with his own world, 
his old life, must have been great. From this 
time a sadness came over him, and he walked 



"LE SOURD" 293 

about as one bearing the burden of some great 
crime done and never to be forgotten. 

Things went from bad to worse ; and, to 
live, he must sell the old house. This, after 
protracted procrastination, he nerved himself 
to do, on condition that he should be allowed 
still to finish in it his remaining days. 

The new owner at once set to work re 
pairing it. The old, leaky thatch-roof was 
torn off, and replaced by one of brilliant red 
tiles. While the workmen were at it, the old 
man wandered around the house, in a hope 
less, lost way. He no longer recognized his 
dear old place. It was sad to see him come 
down and silently watch the work of de 
struction and renovation for a while ; then 
clamber up to his room, where he could be 
heard talking away to himself; again to come 
down and prowl about. Steadily, though fit 
fully, he kept this up during the whole of the 
work. It was evident that the change was 
a great shock to him. He lost his appetite, 
and spent his dinner-hour in helpless fascina 
tion before the great change taking place in 
the home he had irrown old in. 



294 MY VILLAGE 

From this time he lost courage, and steadily 
failed, taking to his bed. Having missed him 
for some time, I went over to see what had 
become of him. Climbing the decrepit stairs, 
I knocked on his door. Receiving no answer, 
I pushed it open. Everything was in dis 
order, and the air felt like that of death. 

The old man lay stretched out on his 
tumble-down bed, a couple of big sticks hold 
ing it in place. I thought him dead, and 
silently advanced and bent over him for 
some sign of either life or death. For some 
moments he remained rigidly motionless ; but 
just as I had come to the conclusion that all 
was over, my presence aroused him. He 
started up wildly, crying, " Who is it ? what 
is it ? " In his weak state he feared that I 
was Death in person, or, perhaps, the devil, 
as some of the old peasants have an idea that 
the devil comes personally to claim his own. 
When at last he recognized me, he was greatly 
relieved. I asked him what was the matter, 
or, rather, howled it at him ; but without 
success. 

Being anxious to know whether any one 



"LE SOURD" 295 

was looking after him or not, I went oft" to a 
neighbor, and howled my question to her, 
forgetting for the moment that every one 
was n t deaf. She told me that his sister had 
been to see him, but had gone off", saying that 
she was tired of nursing him, as he would 
u neither get well nor die." 

This to me seemed too terrible, that the 
old man should thus be left to die alone. I 
went to the mayor and asked what could be 
done. He seemed to think that the old man 
must die, so that it was not worth while doing 
anything. I admitted that he would probably 
die, but vigorously protested against his being 
left alone to do so, claiming that it would be 
a disgrace to the village to allow him to perish 
in this way. This view of the case, and my 
persistence had an effect on the mayor s in 
difference, and he said that he would send 
him to the hospital at Pontoise, in case the 
doctor would give a certificate stating that the 
old man s trouble was something beside old 
age. The village would then pay fifty cents 
per day for his care. This satisfied me, and, 
seeing the doctor, I requested him to over- 



296 MY VILLAGE 

look the old-age trouble, and make out the 
certificate. 

In due time this was done, and the old 
man shipped off to the hospital. I felt that 
the change would perhaps kill him, thus to 
have to leave his old house , but it seemed the 
only thing to be done. And, alas ! as I feared, 
the hospital was too much for him. They 
washed him, and put him in a clean bed. 
The effect was death to him, for in a few 
days he passed away. Poor old Gus ! for 
years he had never known what a bath was. 
His first experience killed him. 





FIRE AT REMY 

IT seems that at last our fire-brigade has 
had an opportunity to use its pump, the cele 
brated u aspirante et refoulante." Justice has 
at last been done ; their long waiting of years 
has finally been rewarded. 

A fire at Re my, across the river, was the 
excuse. About midnight I had heard a drum 
being brutally pounded ; shortly after a clum 
sily blown trumpet disturbed my slumbers. 
I cursed the latter as a nuisance, thinking that 
some reveller returning drunk from the fete 



298 MY VILLAGE 

of L Isle Adam, feeling the necessity of com 
pany, was thus searching for it. I even be 
came so indignant that I thought of getting 
up and stopping him ; but being too drowsy 
rolled over and endeavored to take up the 
broken thread of my dream. 

In the morning I was informed of the fire. 
Its effects on Valombre were very amusing. 
The men who had turned out in the night 
were too tired to go to work to-day, and 
patronized the saloons to talk " fire " over 
sundry glasses. Those who had not taken 
part in the affair so regretted it that now they 
joined in here, thinking " better late than 
never." And though they could not add 
their testimony, they at least would drink and 
show a proper sympathy ; even tell how the 
fire should have been dealt with, etc. 

Of this category were my neighbors, 
Carvol, and Delphine s husband ; and early 
in the day they were already up to the proper 
pitch of enthusiasm, and in a condition which 
would have been bettered by having the pump- 
hose turned on them. 

On arriving at my place for working this 



FIRE AT RfiMY 299 

afternoon, just on the edge of the plain, in 
the shade of some small poplars, I there found 
Carvol sleeping the sleep of the very drunk, 
his little dog Misere keeping guard over 
him. Several hours later, as I was finishing 
my picture, he rolled over and woke up ; but 
it was very evident that life was a burden to 
him, his head was too heavy. He told me of 
the fire so graphically that I naturally thought 
he had participated in the excitement. But 
Rosalie informed me later, with a sincere 
sentiment of disgust in her voice, that he had 
lazily remained in bed, and now had got 
drunk out of sympathy with the others. 

My little model, Andrea, told me, in the 
most matter-of-fact way, that Carvol, her 
uncle, had got drunk " with papa and 
grandpa ; " and the poor child was so ac 
customed to such occurrences that she spoke 
of it in the most innocent manner, as 
something not at all startling, making no 
comments. 

Later, on going to the butcher s, I had to 
wait long and impatiently while the butcher s 
wife gave her ideas on the fire to a customer. 



300 MY VILLAGE 

Escaping from her, as of" course I in my turn 
had to hear the story, I stepped into the 
green-grocer s across the street. Madame 
Sergent was going it in full blast, both arms 
extended, feverishly describing the immense 
flame, the pump, " aspirante et refoulante," 
etc. I remark that this high-sounding title 
descriptive of the pump s qualities comes 
faithfully into every account. Evidently the 
natives like these two new big words, and are 
proud of their pump which supports so heavy 
a title. 

And wherever I go the fire is the great 
topic ; and the erstwhile quiet air of Valombre 
is alive with tales of flame and pump, " as 
pirante et refoulante." 



PERE GAUDRIER 

OLD FERE GUADRIER occasionally acted 
in the capacity of substitute whenever, for any 
reason, the postman was unable to attend to 
his duties ; and then the jumble was terrible, 
especially with letters bearing foreign names 
such as my own. He distributed them right 
and left, but rarely in the right places. And 
often a letter would be brought me by some 
one living at the farther end of the village, 
delivered there, as usual, by mistake. 

Once I met the old man away up at Butry. 
I asked him if he had n t a letter for me ; he 
looked, to oblige me, and found one. Where 
it might have been delivered had I not by 
chance met him, would be hard to say. He 
was not a bit put out, but, on the con 
trary, seemed to feel quite proud that he had 
recognized me, though so far from home. 
He afterward innocently told me that some 



302 MY VILLAGE 

people were fussy enough to complain of him 
because he occasionally misplaced a letter. 
I sympathized with him, and naturally ad 
mitted the injustice of such severity ; as a 
result, we became great friends. 

Having missed him for some time, and 
wondering how he had got through the 
winter, I dropped in on the old man late one 
afternoon. His wife was in the kitchen 
when I entered ; she beamed me a welcome, 
and, in response to my questions regarding 
her health, told me all about her sickness. 

I had already supposed her dead and buried, 
as on my last visit the old man told me, with 
tears running down his cheeks, that she had 
been bedridden for some months. u It seems," 
so he told me, "that the marrow of her back 
bone has settled down into her legs, so that 
she can t lift them." Poor old man ! his 
ideas were rather vague on disease and 
anatomy. 

" Ah," she said, " one must have a solid 
frame to resist at my age, seventy-three. 
They told me that it was paralysis ; but I 
said to myself, as for being paralyzed, I m 



PERE GAUDRIER 303 

nut, for you see when one is paralyzed he- 
does n t feel anything, it s as though one 
were dead ; but I, on the contrary, felt all 
my trouble. Oh, I knew well what it was 
from the beginning; it was the marrow of my 
backbone. I could feel it detaching itself 
from the spine of the back, like that," mak 
ing a graphic gesture. " At last I began to 
find the time long. I asked how long I had 
been here ? They told me two months. Then 
I wanted to get up. My husband made me 
a pair of crutches ; but I could n t budge, my 
feet were too heavy. But one day I man 
aged to get downstairs. They were n t long ; 
still, I had to come down on my four paws 
like a baby, and to go up in the same way. 
The doctor was astounded at seeing me up. 
Now it s going a little better. I take my 
stick for walking, because I don t want to 
fall, you know." Suiting the action to the 
word, she cheerfully dragged her old bent 
body out into the sunlight. 

The old man complained of having a 
heavy cold which had settled in his throat, 
and gave me a detailed account of his per- 



304 MY VILLAGE 

sonal ailments ; striking a side blow at the 
doctor, like a true peasant, saying that he 
did n t count for anything in his wife s re 
covery. From this he wandered on to tell 
me about the old clock, which, hanging at a 
drunken angle, ticked away cheerfully though 
feebly. " Yes," he said, " that s the only- 
way it will go ; the railroad, you see, shakes 
it up so. For three months I gave up trying 
to make it go ; then, one dav, I said to myself, 
Let s have another look at it, and I pushed it 
around that way, perhaps it will go like that ; 
and, voila, it started and has gone ever since. 
But it stops if I straighten it up. Funny, 
is n t it ? but it s like that, voila / " 

He informed me that his trade was that of 
a saddle-maker, but that he did very little 
now, as he could n t see clearly. So he 
mended umbrellas and odds and ends in 
general, suggesting that if I wanted anything 
mended he could mend it. 

For a long time I saw no more of the old 
man, and one day, to my surprise, w r as in 
formed that the old couple had left, had 



PERK GAUDRIER 305 

removed to Paris. I afterward discovered that 
some charitable friends had had them com 
fortably placed in an old people s home. It 
was probably hard for them to end their days 
in this way, for they had both remained quite 
independent to the last. But unfortunately 
they had lived too long to be able to earn 
their living; after sixty years of work they 
could do no more. 

Last Sunday Pere Gaudrier s furniture and 
odds and ends were sold by auction, bringing 
about one hundred francs ; eighty of which 
were to go to the landlord for payment of 
back rent, the rest for the old man. It would 
have broken his heart to see his dear old 
relics sold for a song ; fortunately he was not 
there. The old man, like all old people, had 
valued his belongings, familiar to him for 
years, at a high price, and his disillusion must 
have been painful when he found but twenty 
francs coming as his share. 

Dosh, my model, bought his overcoat for 
twenty-five francs (five dollars). Other things 
sold for but two or three sous, etc. But 



306 MY VILLAGE 

he had so much rubbish that the whole 
mounted up to a reasonably fair sum, con 
sidering the value of the stuff". And now 
the last trace of" the poor old man has left 
Valombre. 

The following year I heard that he was 

O 

dead. He had pined away, unable to accept 
life away from the open fields, and unhappy 
under the restraint of the hospital discipline. 
The old woman, at last reports, was still 
living, though it was generally thought that 
she would soon follow him. 

Poor old people ! after fifty years of in 
dependent housekeeping, they could not 
adapt themselves to a new life thus at the 
eleventh hour. 



wsvjJT 




IN THE FIELDS 

THE life of the fields is always picturesque 
and interesting, especially during the pea and 
bean seasons. Gay, happy crowds busily 
gather the green pods, which in the evening 
are shipped to Paris for the morrow s market. 
Young and old work side by side. The crop 
must be quickly gathered, while the market is 
still empty. So all must lend a hand, and 
the great plain is full of life. 

They take their work cheerfully, keeping 
up a running fire of jokes, jokes often 



308 MY VILLAGE 

decidedly broad, yet their wit is not always 
stupid, by any means. Though coarse and 
boisterous, their good humor is invigorating, 
and sustains them through the long day of 
burning sun and bent backs. 

Now and then a song is started, some old 
romance, which their grandmothers had sung 




at the same work ; one of those old trailing 
melodies, without end, and always with a 
chorus, in which all would join. Though 
the voices are uncultivated and sometimes 
false, they do not lack sweetness and 
harmony. Brusquely succeeding an air of 
" Old France," comes a modern sone, of 



IN THE FIELDS 



39 



decidedly Parisian flavor. Even the peasant 
tries to keep up with the times. 

Gossiping and singing, the busy hands 
rapidly rilling their baskets, lighten their 
Isbors. The topics of the day, the events 
of the village, marriages, deaths, etc., are 







discussed. Those who saw the tricks of the 
prestidigitateur on the " Place " the night 
before, glowingly recount the performance to 
the less fortunate ; and conversation dwells 
on magic : each has seen some particular 
trick more wonderful than that known to his 
neighbor, etc., etc. 



310 



MY VILLAGE 



As this subject becomes exhausted, one 
little girl varies the monotony by graphically 
recounting the suicide of her father. He 
had already attempted to take his life, and 
she had watched him suspiciously on his last 
night, as he pretended to sleep. At last, 




thinking him really asleep, she had fallen into 
a doze. Awakening suddenly with a start, 
and missing him, dreading the worst, she 
mounted to the attic, where, hanging to a 
beam, swung the body of her father. Though 
terribly frightened, she managed to give the 
alarm ; but too late. 

This story cast a sympathetic gloom over 



IN THE FIELDS 



3 11 



her audience ; then commentaries showered 
in, thick and fast. The tragedy suggested 




others, and now the morbid was the order of 
the day. Each had some lugubrious story to 




tell, one woman recounting a whole series of 
misfortunes, all happening to her or hers. 



312 



MY VILLAGE 




.. 
"- 1 fi 



But this gloom was of short duration : the 
sun shines too brightly ; life is strong and 
healthy, and 
again the jokes 
fly free and fast. 
A stop is taken 
for lunch, under 
the shade of a 
huge cotton 
umbrella, or be 
neath one of the 
great wheat- 
ricks which 
cover the plain. Then the work goes on 
until dark. The shepherd driving in his 




IN THE FIELDS 

flock is the signal for the close of the day s 
work, when weary laborers lay down their 
baskets and again straighten their bent 
backs. 





THE FISHERMAN 

I WENT down to the river to-day to see the 
fisherman. On reaching his place I found 
that he was away ; but while hesitating as to 
where to go to look for him, the problem 
solved itself by his boat s suddenly round 
ing a bunch of willows, returning from 
a catch. With his wife, he had been up the 
river fishing ; but the day had proved unsatis 
factory, the water was too cold, he told me. 

The old woman was not talkative, and 



THE FISHERMAN 315 

silently studied me, drawing within her shell 
at sight of the stranger. 

On mv asking if it was here that Kaiser 
had stolen the fish, she at once came to life, 
and developed a wonderful volubility. Blood 
will tell ; she was Constance s sister, and, 
once warmed up, there was no stopping her. 
She soon gave me all the information I 
desired, and more, more, quantities of it. 
For nearly an hour she held me, and was fresh 
and alert when I, exhausted, pleaded an 
errand and escaped. Talking in great 
quantities is a gift in Constance s family. 

" Yes," she started, " right here, right in 
that boat you see ; there s where those good- 
for-nothings robbed me. They came in the 
night, after we had gone to bed, and with 
some sort of a pry burst the padlock. They 
took thirty francs worth of fish, then 
threw the lock, chain, and boxes overboard, 
the scoundrels ! as though it was n t bad 
enough to steal, they destroyed the property. 
That was useless wickedness, ah, the 
scamps ! He, over there [the proprietor of 
the bateau /V/iw r] , heard them at it, and 



316 MY VILLAGE 

came over to tell us. On his way he met 
them, the three, with the basket, crossing the 
bridge going to Remy. 

" I got up at once, and waked my old man. 
They had gone to the liquor shop at the end 
ot the bridge, a good-for-nothing and a thief, 
that marchand de vins ! While Firman went 
off after the gendarmes, I prowled around and 
listened by the window. They were talking 
and joking about the theft inside. One said, 
If the old man had come down, I d have 
clubbed him quiet. Another added, I d 
have thrown him into the river. A third 
broke out with, But did n t that eel squirm ? 
I tell you an eel is awkward to hold ; then, 
That was a fine pike, etc., etc. Now," 
added the old woman, " I said to myself, 
My fine birds, now I ve got you. 

The gendarmes suddenly startled the jolly 
thieves by making an irruption into the room. 
The consternation was general. Flight was 
impossible. They were called on to own up 
and give back the fish that were still uncooked. 
They foolishly tried to lie, saying that there 
was only one fish. One of the gendarmes 



THE FISHERMAN 317 

looked at the plates littered with bones and tins 
and jocularly cried, " Say, Firman, you re a 
fisherman. Did you ever see a fish with one 
head and two tails before ? " pointing to these 
remains. This cornered them, and sheepishly 
they were forced to admit their theft. Search 
revealed a well-loaded basket of pike and 
trout, which the saloon-keeper had hid out 
of sight at the first alarm. " There were 
two fine big pike," broke in angrily the old 
woman. " Here is only one ; where is the 
other ? " He had escaped, they claimed. 
The gendarmes ended the scene bv putting 
the thieves in handcuffs, and leading them off 
to jail. 

Firman told me that he had been robbed 
quite frequently this season. The night of 
the I4th of Julv, in his wrath, he took his 
shot-gun, and patiently waited behind some 
willows till early morning ; but no thieves 
came. The next night, tired, he slept the 
sleep of the just, and in the morning found 
that his fish had again disappeared. His 
language was fearfully decorative as he stood 
and looked at the broken lock and boxes. 



31 8 MY VILLAGE 

Constance tells me that once he " laid " 
for a thief whom he had warned that he 
would shoot if he ever caught him in the act. 
The miscreant unfortunately put in an ap 
pearance one night when the old man hap 
pened to be on the watch, and, while 
busily engaged in robbing the boat, received 
a charge of shot in the back. Shortly after 
he took to his bed. His wife could not un 
derstand his strange sickness, the mass of 
small holes in his back quite confounding 
her. In a week s time he died. 

Nothing was ever said of the affair, the 
peasant defensively fighting shy of the law. 
Firman felt very remorseful about the case, 
though feeling still that he was justified in 
doing as he had done. 




THE CHAIR "RESEATER" 

THE rain having stopped my work, I step 
into the cottage of the old woman " who 
mends chair bottoms," Oh, no ! she did n t 
mind. I could make a sketch if I wanted to. 
She had often posed before, etc., etc. ; knew 
all about it. 



320 MY VILLAGE 

Yes, business was good enough. There 
were always chairs to be mended. No ; she 
had no rivals. Her sister used to work at 
the same trade, but she was dead. True, 
there was another old woman, up by the Rue 
Remv, who used to do this work, but now 
she had given it up, was too old. 

Last year a man had started to work in 
the " Place," the public square. He was a 
serious rival ; " for you know he did nothing 
but that. He did n t have a house to attend 
to." But at last he went away ; so now the 
field was hers. 

She could make from fifty to sixty cents 
a day, she said, and seemed quite satisfied. 



WINTER 

WINTER exposes painfully the seamy side 
of rural life. The thin spots and holes of 
its garment become conspicuously apparent. 
The picturesque, unkempt thatch now opens 
to let in the wind and rain. And they, with 
unerring instinct, seem to strike at once for 
the weak spots ; and so successful are they in 
their cruel revelry that the recollection of the 
warm and dry is almost forgotten. And the 
present appears all gloomy and cheerless, as 
though no gayety and joy had ever existed. 

The peasant, recently so ruddy and vigor 
ous, a favored mortal in a favored setting, 
now seems to have shrivelled up into a cring 
ing, suffering beast of burden, forced to ex 
pose himself in a seemingly hopeless, cheer 
less struggle for mere existence. 

But a month ago his lot seemed enviable, 
healthy, strong, and free from undue care. 
And seeing him thus, all life appeared a great 



322 MY VILLAGE 

success. Alas, how quickly the shadows 
follow the light ! And though ever the same 
old story, during the bright moments the past 
and future are quite forgotten or ignored. 
One willingly lives in the present, and sees 
no reason why it should not always be thus. 

The contrast of the seasons is really ap 
palling. One loses courage at the sight of 
such a complete collapse from sun, health, 
and joy, where all prospers, and cares are 
relegated easily to the background, as though 
their existence was quite unnecessary, to this 
terribly apparent evidence of pain, worry, 
and poverty. The struggle for life becomes 
abominably evident. 

Where but a few short weeks ago the 
young and old went cheerfully humming to 
their work in the fields, now, the number 
sadly decreased, they scurry hastily along, 
with hands in pockets, and arms hugged close 
to their sides, in an endeavor to retain their 
own animal heat as long as possible. 

The old, who had gathered a new surcease 
of life from the summer s sun, now slowly 
but surely dry up and wither away. The 



WINTER 323 

church bell tolls oftener. But a tew weeks 
back one easily forgot its existence. Now 
its solemn, lugubrious notes seem ever wail 
ing in the air. The dark, simple funeral 
procession files ottener and more steadily 
towards the little cemetery on the hill, where 
weary bones are laid at rest. 

The sun has gone. Reckless of conse 
quences, he brought bright days and joy, 
drouth and sunstroke, fever and death ; then 
sailed slowly away, leaving the earth to freeze 
and groan. Heartless and omnipotent, giv 
ing and taking life in the same, mighty, blind, 
indifferent way. 

The cold, penetrating wind cuts one to 
the bone. Night and a pitiless sleet come 
down together. The bare branches of the 
tall trees sough sadly. The sky is cold and 
leaden ; and as the day drops suddenly into 
night, the thin, leafless branches disappear in 
the general gloom. From out the dark torest 
come shapeless, mystic forms, moving slowly 
and painfully along, like a procession of hope 
less but persevering forest Danaides. Now, 
as they come nearer, they are more clearly 



324 MY VILLAGE 

defined against the snow-covered road. Still, 
they do not seem to be human, though each 
incongruous shape shows a pair of moving 
feet. Nearer and nearer they approach. 
Yes, they are human forms. There is the 
bright head kerchief, making a light spot 
against an uncouth mass of something black 
and jagged towering above it. What is this 
mystery ? Ogres or phantoms ? Neither. 
Only the old women coming from the wood, 
bearing on their backs their huge, dispropor 
tionate loads of fagots. 

As they advance, the weird gives place to 
the picturesque, and this picturesque to the 
pathetic, as one sees these wrinkled old faces 
and bent bodies straining under their great 
loads. Their struggle for existence is a hard 
one ; yet they hold to it and fight bravely, as 
though there were something to lose. The 
great mystery of life, unexplainable, but real : 
those who apparently have everything to 
gain by death hold on tenaciously to life, and 
breathe their last breath under protest. 

Ah, no ! winter is not encouraging. Suf 
fering and misery are its companions. Its 



WINTER 



3 2 5 



traces are visible everywhere. Even the 
landscape loses its beauty. The picturesque 
houses now seem to be but hovels, imper 
fectly sheltering their unfortunate tenants. 
Oh, the horrible thing, winter, with its pains 
and discouragement ! All life looks black and 
hopeless, and is, for the time being; and 
gloom settles over the land. 

Then come back, summer, and bring a 
little more joy into the hearts of the poor 
and unfortunate ! 




Date Due 



PRINTED IN U.S.A. CAT. NO. 24 161 C**f 



A 000548217 9 



